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February 17, 2007

hardware

AirPort Extreme review roundup

Posted Feb. 17, ’07, 7:01 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Hardware

AirPort ExtremeWe’ve been loving on the new 802.11n AirPort Extreme Base Station since its non-announcement at Macworld Expo, despite the fact that none of the MacUser staff has managed to get their hands on one (our shoestring budget barely allows us to afford shoestrings!). But plenty of others have taken a look at the device.

Our buddy Glenn Fleishman reviews the Base Station for our big brothers at Macworld. What does the guru of wireless networking say?

Apple’s new AirPort Extreme Base Station may have been a long time coming, but it’s worth the wait for anyone whose network needs either greater speed or longer distance. While cheaper 802.11n gateways are already on the market, none matches Apple’s for features or ease of setup. Apple just needs to step up to the plate and add gigabit Ethernet to fulfill this speed demon’s full potential.
Gadget blog Gizmodo weighs in with its own review, albeit with a few warnings:
So would we recommend this as an N-router? Yes, but with caveats. Its N performance was great—but the lack of Gigabit Ethernet, Xbox 360/VPN issues, and inability to change the MAC address of their router to get online rules this out for certain people. Yet another caveat when buying any draft-N networking equipment, not just Apple’s Airport Extreme: When we asked whether this draft-N firmware was going to be upgradeable to the final N spec, Apple said they tried to make it as upgradeable as possible but it was impossible to say until the final draft is released.
Engadget adds its thoughts:
When we were connected on 5GHz at 300Mbps, we saw performance jump from an average of about 30Mbps to between 65-75Mbps sustained; still pretty good, but not pushing the typical cap of 88-92Mbps we get to hard Ethernet-to-Ethernet machines on that network. However, again, YMMV, as radio interference and thus network performance can vary from lab to lab, room to room, and household to household.
Finally, Macintouch offers not only its own review, but also its usual, invaluable reader reports.

It’s a deluge of useful information for those trying to decide about upgrading to the wireless standard of the next century. For my part, the lack of computers with 802.11n means that I won’t be upgrading just yet. Consider me sorely tempted, though.


2 Comments

Kelmon said:

I can say that my Airport Extreme is doing the business for me. I haven't yet had the opportunity to test out its performance but it has at least resolved all my networking woes by giving wireless coverage across my house and, by connecting my old Airport Extreme as a remote station, allowed me to print wirelessly to my printer in the office upstairs (the router has to be located downstairs at the moment). AirDisk seems to work pretty well, although I did encounter some issues after partitioning the drive locally. Overall, I'm pretty chuffed with how easily everything has gone.

February 17, 2007 7:31 AM
Michael Long said:

One note for those considering an "upgrade" from the AirPort Express: the Extreme doesn't have a headphone jack for speakers. As such, it can't replace an Express if you've been using iTunes to stream music to a set of wirelessly connected speakers.

February 17, 2007 1:09 PM

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