Is Airport Extreme for me?
I know they say it's good for home use as well as business/etc., but my question is, would it be over-reaching to get this for a two-notebook home? I'm all for overkill because I like quality and efficiency (and the Apple name), but I'm not all too enthused at the idea of paying $179 dollars when I know I could get a simple (and significantly less powerful?) Linksys router for less than half the price. My friend said that's what I should do. Which sounds like reasonable advice, but I almost feel like I'd be contaminating my new Macs by using anything but Apple hardware. silly, i kno~
I'd consider the smaller one that's only $99 but the reviews on it were a bit depressing. Works fine for a year, breaks later? And I know everything has good and bad reviews, but that one had one too many bads for my comfort. (And what exactly is Air Tunes? Does the more expensive model have that also?)
Also, what might be the things that set Linksys and Airport Extreme apart? More power? Better product? Is Airport really worth the extra wad of cash? What am I looking at?
Well, I'd greatly appreciate any help.
I'd consider the smaller one that's only $99 but the reviews on it were a bit depressing. Works fine for a year, breaks later? And I know everything has good and bad reviews, but that one had one too many bads for my comfort. (And what exactly is Air Tunes? Does the more expensive model have that also?)
Also, what might be the things that set Linksys and Airport Extreme apart? More power? Better product? Is Airport really worth the extra wad of cash? What am I looking at?
Well, I'd greatly appreciate any help.
Comments
Personally, I'm waiting for:
Linksys WRT350N
to become supported by OpenWRT. It looks very promising.
I know they say it's good for home use as well as business/etc., but my question is, would it be over-reaching to get this for a two-notebook home? I'm all for overkill because I like quality and efficiency (and the Apple name), but I'm not all too enthused at the idea of paying $179 dollars when I know I could get a simple (and significantly less powerful?) Linksys router for less than half the price. My friend said that's what I should do. Which sounds like reasonable advice, but I almost feel like I'd be contaminating my new Macs by using anything but Apple hardware. silly, i kno~
I'd consider the smaller one that's only $99 but the reviews on it were a bit depressing. Works fine for a year, breaks later? And I know everything has good and bad reviews, but that one had one too many bads for my comfort. (And what exactly is Air Tunes? Does the more expensive model have that also?)
Also, what might be the things that set Linksys and Airport Extreme apart? More power? Better product? Is Airport really worth the extra wad of cash? What am I looking at?
Well, I'd greatly appreciate any help.
I'm enjoying mine. I got it for AppleTV primarily, the only other wireless item is a MacBook (until the two iPhones for our household are delivered in June). I wouldn't say an AE for two MacBooks would be overkill. You can share a printer or drive at the base station. Printer sharing works great. I replaced a five year old Linksys that until recently was trouble free, so I can vouch for their products.
I know they say it's good for home use as well as business/etc., but my question is, would it be over-reaching to get this for a two-notebook home? I'm all for overkill because I like quality and efficiency (and the Apple name), but I'm not all too enthused at the idea of paying $179 dollars when I know I could get a simple (and significantly less powerful?) Linksys router for less than half the price. My friend said that's what I should do. Which sounds like reasonable advice, but I almost feel like I'd be contaminating my new Macs by using anything but Apple hardware. silly, i kno~
I'd consider the smaller one that's only $99 but the reviews on it were a bit depressing. Works fine for a year, breaks later? And I know everything has good and bad reviews, but that one had one too many bads for my comfort. (And what exactly is Air Tunes? Does the more expensive model have that also?)
Also, what might be the things that set Linksys and Airport Extreme apart? More power? Better product? Is Airport really worth the extra wad of cash? What am I looking at?
Well, I'd greatly appreciate any help.
Well, Linksys is junk. Netgear makes some fabulous 802.11n and 802.11g routers that can be had as refurbs for as little as $55 and $19, respectively. What the AXn does that nothing else does as simply is allow you to use USB drives as shared network drives, and allows you to use it as a USB print server. If you don't need or want that functionality, don't waste your money. If you do, you can't put together a solution using other manufacturer's equipment for much less, if any less, money.
AirTunes is a feature of the Airport Exress that allows you to connect speakers to it and play music from your computer, via iTunes, accross an 802.11b/g/n network. I use it in my bedroom and my kitchen. The AXn does not do it - only the Airport Express has an audio output jack.
I currently run the 54GL at home and it's amazing. In 5 months, it's only ever gone down once and a quick power cycle resolved it.
To it's credit, I also have an AirPort Extreme (the old boob model) and while not nearly as powerful or as customizable, setup was pretty idiotproof.
Second question. Will you use it? Do you do alot of transfers of data between the two notebooks. For internet access 802.11n is overkill in terms of speed. It's way faster than than most broadband internet connections. Even 802.11g is faster than any broadband internet connections. So the only place you would use the speed is between 2 computers.
As for the Linksys question. Well let's just say I replaced my old Airport Base Station with a Linksys WRT54G wireless router years back and haven't looked back. Linksys routers, D-link routers and others are just as good and sometimes have better features. Not that the latest Airport Extreme doesn't have some nice features, but it's not any better than any other name brand router out there.
First question before you buy anything. Do you have Core 2 Duo MacBooks or MacBook Pros? Ie The notebooks you have must have 802.11n hardware to be of any benefit.
Second question. Will you use it? Do you do alot of transfers of data between the two notebooks. For internet access 802.11n is overkill in terms of speed. It's way faster than than most broadband internet connections. Even 802.11g is faster than any broadband internet connections. So the only place you would use the speed is between 2 computers.
As for the Linksys question. Well let's just say I replaced my old Airport Base Station with a Linksys WRT54G wireless router years back and haven't looked back. Linksys routers, D-link routers and others are just as good and sometimes have better features. Not that the latest Airport Extreme doesn't have some nice features, but it's not any better than any other name brand router out there.