Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station (Gigabit) MB053LL/A | a must if you have both PC's and Macs

Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station (Gigabit) MB053LL/A | Pricey but a good deal anyway.

electronics:

Apple AirPort Extr...

	Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station (Gigabit) MB053LL/A Apple Computer Apple Computer, 2007 average customer review:based on 120 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

a must if you have both PC's and Macs

First off don't be put off by the price, you can get this used from Apple for only $150 (full warranty) or even less on resale sites. The main advantages of this router are steady (but not super spectacular) speed, rock steady performance, and the incredible ability to mount MAC formatted HFS+ disks and FAT 32 disks with USB connections and any usb printer so that all your computers can read/write/print to them (I don't run linux so can't vouch for that OS.)

I recently upgraded both the PC's (two thinkpads with gigabit wired/ABG wireless and a WMC box I built myself) with our nest of Macs (three minis, G4, G5, ipod touch, ibook) and successively worked my way up from our old Linksys GS up to two new linksys N routers (110 and 310) and the Dlink DIR-655) Never though to look at the Airport since its 50% more expensive than the others. However I wanted gigabit ethernet and needed to access two specific DNS routers for our company VPN. The only one that would do this was the Dlink, (the VPN feature is flaky on the new Linksys models) but none of them had a network USB port so I tried the apple on a whim and am glad I did. Its not as easy to set-up with its arcane menus but it does have an utility that works fine with either PC's or Macs that are hardwired to the router, and it easy to save the settings even if its difficult to find them, thank Heaven for the user groups!
Anyway I have an old HP laser printer and two USB dirves hooked up to this, one was the dedicated backup for the G5, and much to my surprise I can see and print/access all of them from our thinkpads. That right there is more than worth the price difference. As for raw speed the D-Link seems faster on our mixed G/N network though the signal strength from the Airport is stronger a few rooms away than any of the others. Interesting in that the apple seems to have a setting that affects the speed it downloads video files so they don't timeout on buffering. All the other routers would hiccup when I was looking at CNN, film trailers, or other internet news feeds, but not the airport - its sweet and stable and makes watching all those video clips way too easy.
There are a few cons, being an apple product it integrates flawlessly with the Apple hardware, but since my laptops are company secured we can't run bonjour so we had to hardwire access to the disk drives and printers (again thanks to Google and user groups) And it takes a while to handshake with one of our laptops running WPA2 security, but doesn't drop it once it locks on.
If you didn't care for the port options and were only running PC's I think the DLink would be the better choice, its under $100 now and work well in mixed mode like we have and kicks at pure N. The linksys 310 was and okay contender, but wouldn't keep the VPN settings which I need to access our company servers, and it runs pretty hot.

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Pricey but a good deal anyway.

This is definitely a high-end router... but it is worth every cent. Setup is ridiculously easy under both OSX and WinXP, signal strength is excellent and reaches quite far, and is very reliable. The unit's design is exactly what one should expect from Apple- simple, durable, and dependable. There aren't any antennae to be whacked and broken by somebody's elbow, and the one-piece rubber base keeps it from slipping off the table when somebody's foot catches the cord.

Routers are one of those things that just become invisible when they work properly; this one does exactly that.

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Pleased PC User

I am a total Windows pc user i dont own any apple computers (except several ipods). That said i had no trouble setting up or using the AirPort Extreme with all of my windows pc's and laptops period. I spent about 30 min setting up a WDS wireless network with the extreme and my Airport Express. i had no problems with the setup other then a lack of helpful information on how to set up a WDS network on a Windows PC. i plan to purchase at least two more Expresses to further expand my network.

Got my money's worth

I bought a used unit, a few months back, on craigslist for $120 after a great deal of thinking and I'm really happy I went with it.
I knew what I wanted to do with it: 1) Use it for quick network based backups of my data, without having to hookup an external hard drive physically to my Macbook Pro. 2) should be able to support my airport express so that I could send the music on my computer to my Home Theater system. 3) Most importantly function as a fast home router that didn't look ugly sitting in my living room

I got everything working after a little bit of time and effort. It wasn't really plug and play, but I guess plug and play would work only if you are using it for basic home networking needs. My only complaint about it is the lack of a web based interface. Let me also state that the range is very good.

I wanted the max speed 802.11n has to offer, and was not ready to settle for less. Configuring it on mixed mode with WPA encryption, only gave me 130mbps but configuring on 802.11n only mode at 5.4ghz gave me 300 mbps. Since I have other computers at home that are 802.11g based, I hooked up my old belkin router to the ethernet port of the airport (kept it a little far from the extreme to avoid any electrical interference) to create a secondary network for all the other devices.

For backups with time machine, I initially hooked up my external hard drive directly to my MacbookPro and after it was complete, connected it to the Airport Extreme. Now hourly backups over the air, are fairly quick and I could restore a 700 mb file from my time machine backup drive within 2 minutes. I think Apple really nailed this one. Can't think of such a seamlessly integrated solution for windows.

A few things on my wish list:
1. Full 300mbps link speed even in mixed mode, so that all my devices can be on the same network.
2. A web based interface
3. A wizard on the airport utility that guides you through the setup process for different configurations.

All in all, I think its the best value for your money provided you use all the features it has to offer.

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