Airport Extreme

[brenda TN]

Just wanted to post this hoping it would help someone else. I had bought a Netgear router before I got my macbook last year. Everyone kept telling me a router is a router. It had the n at the end of it so it was a newer model. But I struggled with slow internet for a year. I even paid the $10 extra to get the fastest internet Comcast had. We also had a pc hooked up to the modem. I finally carried by mac in the apple store and he said I had to have a dual router. I went ahead and bought the Airport Extreme from Amazon. Five minute hookup and I have almost instant response on the internet on mac and iphone. Unbelievable difference. If only someone had told me a year ago.

[miles01110]

Sounds like a user problem to me, and I'm not trynig to be snarky here. The statement "you have to have a dual-band router [for a Mac to utilize the connection]" is false. There is some advantage to the AEBS for the uninformed user in terms of setup, but at the fundamental level a router is indeed a router.

[balamw]

Originally Posted by miles01110

There is some advantage to the AEBS for the uninformed user in terms of setup, but at the fundamental level a router is indeed a router.

Two non-user possibilities.

1) The 2.4 GHz band has too much interference in it so the dual band 5 GHz helps
2) The user has some older 802.11b or g devices that bring the whole network down to that performance, again the simultaneous dual band would help isolate that.

We don't know what they told him in the store and why, but it does seem to be working so don't knock it.

B

[miles01110]

Originally Posted by balamw

1) The 2.4 GHz band has too much interference in it so the dual band 5 GHz helps

The iPhone cannot connect to a 5 GHz 802.11n signal, so that would only make sense for the Mac.

2) The user has some older 802.11b or g devices that bring the whole network down to that performance, again the simultaneous dual band would help isolate that.

If it was actually an 802.11n, 2.4 GHz-only router, a/b/g devices wouldn't be able to connect at all.

[balamw]

Originally Posted by miles01110

The iPhone cannot connect to a 5 GHz 802.11n signal, so that would only make sense for the Mac.

If it was actually an 802.11n, 2.4 GHz-only router, a/b/g devices wouldn't be able to connect at all.

Both true, but I haven't seen (m)any .n only routers. They all fall back to at least g if not a/b/g.

We don't even know if the OPs iPhone is a 4 (i.e. .n compatible, or a 3G/3GS that would only support .g).

B

[maccompaq]

Apple products just work, so it is worth the extra cost.

[grawk]

Unfortunately, the AEBS seems to be an instance of where the apple product doesn't just work. My current gen AEBS crashes fairly regularly. Admittedly, we have a lot of traffic on my home network, but it's simply unacceptable for a $179 router to crash just because 3 users and a few devices are actively using it.

[AMDGAMER]

I agree with the "apple products just work" comment. Very true. Everything I've bought comes out of the box (and always solid almost fancy packaging) and works like a charm. I guess thats why the company is worth so much. Where this is proven quality and customer service, people will buy.