Is the AirPort Extreme worth it?

JoshHopkins

Ive been debating whether or not to buy one for a while now since it comes with quite a hefty price tag. What are your thoughts?

Nick Fallavollita

Its a fantastic product! the price well so what if u own a mac in warranty the extreme is covered by a mac. the speed is freaking fast. I have had problems with dlink and linksys and said enough is enough and got an extreme. speeds are in the 300 mbps range on 2011 macbook pro almost anywhere in the 3 story house that i live in. router in the basement. Fantastic product! Highly recommend!

iJcaP

The best router! I upgraded from a linksys WRT54G (Wireless G). GO for it! My linksys shut off from time to time, but Airport Extreme is a powerhouse!

JoshHopkins

Has the connection ever dropped? With my Livebox, I get slow connection and it regularly drops.

johnkeller101

I originally had an airport express for over a year. It worked perfectly fine. Then we ran into a few problems. There is a small limit to the airport express (40-50 connections) when it just cant support it. I guess the main thing is that if its just at your house, than there is no problem with the express, in fact it has the air play speaker functionality in which is mysteriously missing on the air port extreme. On the extreem version, you can daisy chain other airport expresses to create a longer range of your network. I would recommend getting the express first and seeing how you like it. Then if you run into any issues, get the extreme and you can daisy chain the network. Good luck!

Nick Fallavollita

@joshhopkins no connection never drops. That is really weird.

JoshHopkins

@johnkeller101 Do you think the AirPort Express is a adequate router? I have about 10 devices on my network and I imagine the Express would struggle.

johnkeller101

@joshhopkins It also depends on how much bandwidth the devices use up. If they are all not constantly downloading huge files then you should be fine.

Nick Fallavollita

@johnkeller101 Do you think the AirPort Express is a adequate router? I have about 10 devices on my network and I imagine the Express would struggle.

yes if there is alot of things on it yes. if they are just standing around not killing the bandwidth then no there should not be any problems.

kevin

@JoshHopkins I have both the AirPort Extreme and Express routers. I replaced my primary Netgear WNDR3700 with the Extreme, and I'm glad I did. With the WNDR3700, I would need to power cycle the router every month or so as the connection freezes up. With the Extreme, I rarely need to reboot it, maybe once in a blue moon. The WNDR3700 provided better signal range than the Extreme, but with the connection freezing up every few weeks was very annoying.

I think you'll be more happy getting the Extreme over the Express. I only use my Express for AirPlay to my sound system in another room.

SonnyDickson

Yes Sir!

thegraphicmac

Love the APExtreme. I've had one running now for about two years with no restarts or down time at all. Look, you can get a better* router for less money, but you're never going to have the Apple experience and nearly zero-configuration ability of the Airport Extreme. For the consumer Mac user, there's nothing better. For the corporate office, mehhhh....

*Better, meaning faster i/o, more features, better range, etc...

Dan

I've been looking for a reason to upgrade from my Airport Express to an Airport Extreme.  There are now rumours of an Airport with wireless AC band in the works - Only rumours, nothing tangible to date and possibly many months to years away.  However, 802.11ac would allow gigabit wireless, essential these days for streaming 1080P.  So I'm holding out for this.  Definitely worth getting an Airport, my Express has been solid for years!

whosnut

I saw this that I'm thinking about getting: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/14/satechi-releases-mini-router-repeater/. Would be especially useful since I travel a lot and it's 300Mbps.