Yesterday I bought one of the new
Apple Airport Extreme routers that
are ungodly expensive (like everything else Apple sells).
Did I need a new router? No, not really. To date I was using a Belkin
Pre-N wireless router that was quite powerful and actually did a really
good job of covering my entire home -- even providing adequate signal
strength to my back deck for those times I wanted to sit in the sun and
surf the Internet.
So why did I buy this Apple router? Well, a few co-workers bought one
and were gushing over the fact that they found it to be a lot faster than
the routers they had previously owned. They also bragged about the fact
that a printer or external drive could be plugged into the router's USB
port and be made available to every single computer on the network.
I think it was the capability of having an external drive hooked to
the router that could be accessed from my wired desktop and wireless
laptop that pushed me over the edge.
Setting up the router was fairly easy, which surprised me because
routers generally are the most tedious of computer peripherals to
try and set up. Instead of using a webpage to set up the router (as
is the case with most), Apple uses a setup assistant that is software
installed and embedded in the Utilities folder.
I had some initial problems setting up the router due to my own
ignorance. I placed a call to
Verizon Fios who told me that
the Apple router would not work with their service because the IP
address is meant to communicate with their routers, and when it does
not, the address is not renewed. Had I listened to that "bull" the
router would be on its way back to Apple. However, I was determined
to get this router working and simply set it up the way I did my
Belkin and it WORKED!
I was also able to easily add my Airport Express module that operates
my wireless printer to the network.
So, I am certain you guys are wondering if $179 buys you a
better router or not. Well, my initial findings is that the Apple
router gave me the same coverage as my Belkin Pre-N modem.
Signal strength was just as strong across my home. What I did
notice, however, was increased speed. Web page loads were
noticeably faster with the Apple router. It was if my system
suddenly got a nice kick in the pants.
I should stop here and say that I am using the "N" standard
across the board. I downloaded the software update for my
Mac Pro weeks ago to make it fully "N" compliant.
I then hooked up an external hard drive to the router using the
USB connection. You need to tell the Apple router whether you
wish to share this drive across the network. I told it to do so.
Like a charm, the hard drive appeared as an icon on my wireless
laptop and wired desktop.
The only problem I have with accessing that hard drive wirelessly
is that the connection is not very fast. I tried to access the drive
from my laptop and play some stored videos. My laptop had a
hard time playing those videos as the connection was obviously not
fast enough. So, it seems that while you can probably access and
transfer small files easily over the network, the connection absolutely
is too slow to even stream video content off of the hard drive.
All in all, I'm happy with the Apple Airport Extreme router for its
improved web browsing speed and ample signal strength within a
very large home. It's extremely easy to set up. The only minor
disappointment I have is over the rather sluggish remote access to
the external hard drive. I suppose this is to be expected, though I
would think the simple art of "streaming" videos off of it would have
worked much better.
Overall, a great router but extremely overpriced. Most people with
small homes/apartments/townhouses would fare just as well with a
$90-$100 Belkin or Linksys.
Personally, I think it should have 1 Gb/s to match current Macs.
