As I am converting to Apple world, I wanted to switch from using my Netgear WNDR3700v2 (running netgear genie firmware) to AirPort Extreme, just so I could use one of my external HDDs for Time Machine backups as my Netgear does not support that; however, after going through two different AirPort Extreme routers I gave up and went back to using my 2 years old Netgear.
For some reasons, I could not get the 2.4 Ghz radio to work reliably. I could be right in the front of APE and my speeds wouldn't go above 8-10 mbps without chocking or timing out - tried manually switching channels, but nothing really helped. My Netgear on the other hand maxes out at 2.4 Ghz constantly delivering 32-34Mbps - huge difference.
The 5Ghz was also far from stellar, although the APE would usually give me 48-49 Mbps, my Netgear typically was in 54-55Mbps range outperforming APE by small margin.
I really like the simplicity of APE; however, I could not accept the fact that for close to $200 I was getting a very mediocre, almost non functioning device - very sad about it.
I will revisit the APE subject when the new models supporting AC standards show up, but at this point, I decided to spend $35 instead of close to $200 and got myself a twelve south backpack for my iMac and I do my Time Machine to my HDD directly attached to my iMac.