I have owned and used every version of the Apple Airport systems over the years and even though I had a fully working dome shaped Airport Extreme (the previous generation) I decided to buy the new one when I bought my new PowerBook Pro Laptop as it used the n draft connect (more on this later).
In the box... you get a the airport base station, CD with AirPort Utility (Mac and Windows), 802.11n Enabler for Core 2 Duo and Xeon-based Macintosh computers (except 17-inch 1.83GHz iMac, and new Mac mini (1.83Ghz and 2.0GHz), Bonjour for Windows, power cable/pack.
To connect wirelessly to the Station you will need a computer containing a Mac Airport Extreme Card or a PC with a wireless
802.11a/b/g/n card installed (more one this later). You can connect older computers that are situated near to the Base Station with a cable (we have an old workhorse PC that is connected this way, all our others use wireless connection to the network).
Setting the airport up is easy follow the instruction manual and you can't go wrong, it is virtually plug and play. You can use the software to set up the computer you want to manage the network. IMPORTANT: With all networks you really must set up a password for your own peace of mind, people nowadays are quite prepared to buy expensive computers and use them to access the internet but they don't ever think about securing themselves online or via networks, you cannot plead ignorance in this day and age! So any technology you have that allows you to access the wider world please don't just use the generic password that comes with the product, especially when we are talking routers and modems!
The Airport Extreme seems to be faster than it's predecessor and it has a stronger signal and it hasn't crashed once in the year I've owned it, the previous one did do this occasionally. We have PC's and Mac's all running happily on the network all running a mixture of Windows and Mac OSX. We can share files, music, film, printers, scanners and internet connections... in fact you name it and it does it!
The range on the network is excellent, we live in a farmhouse type building and if we take the password off the connection you can get access across the main road and down to the bottom end of our very long garden. Everyone gets a different strength connection depending on a number of factors including the following, walls, microwaves, overhead powerlines, built up areas and the brand/quality of your wireless network card, if you already have poor internet connection this isn't going to perform a miracle and give you a different connection speed. Good tip with wireless networks... to improve your network signal you can always help boost it by using mirrors to reflect the signal around your house more.
So in summary... Compact, neat, smart design unit, great compatibility, easy to use, fast speed, easy to set up, very reliable, Apple support is good, Apple forum also very helpful, personally I think it's good value for money but I'm hardened to the price of Apple products unlike the average PC user.
Bad points... These are the niggly points, works with most external storage hard drives but there are a few that just don't like the Base Station, so it's worth checking out forums before buying if you wish to connect up to a particular one. I found that one of my old hard drives didn't spin down when it was connected to the base station but was idle, which makes me think the drive would expire before it's time if I left it connected for long periods. This can happen though with other brands of base stations and it's more likely to be an issue with the hard drive and not the base station.
The second and final issue is the 802.11n draft network, The n draft network means its a new network that hasn't been standardised around the world, so manufacturers are all using slightly different software and hardware until a regulation is passed by the IEEE, so conflicts may occur if you try to connect different brand network cards to another brand wireless base station. Currently you can choose to use a number of different networks for varying speeds and compatibility, older computer wireless cards will use 802.11a or b or g, this Apple base station will let you use all of these versions no matter what brand the card is. My new mac uses the n draft as well, so no issue there for me because the network card in my computer is made by Apple as is the base station, but if you have a pc using a different brand n draft card (Belkin being one we tried) it will connect but not allow you to secure your network with any password which makes you vulnerable so don't bother using n draft to connect your PC, wait until the IEEE pass a standard so all the manufacturers use the same system. We use n draft on our exclusively Mac Airport Extreme network and on our PC and Mac Airport Extreme network we use g. Both networks are great very stable and secure, but there isn't much difference in speed unless you are streaming film. So as I said before just niggly issues that aren't easy to explain. I hope all this makes sense and I've explained it reasonably well. All in all the new Apple Airport Extreme Base Station is great! Try one!
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Sep 27th, 2007
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