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Airport Extreme base station - do you recommend it?

V

Vinny

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I'm thinking about buying an Airport Extreme base station. Can you guys give me some idea of how this performs? What are some of it's drawbacks (ie, compatibility, signal strength, security)

I plan to use it with my new iMac as well as a PC notebook (w2k, fedora)

I currently have a Netgear FM114P, which works pretty good. I've been wanting to get a new laser printer to use as a network printer, but the printers I'm looking at don't come with a parallel connection to mate up with my FM114P.

Thanks in advance!
 
-Vinny

Having more experience in this field than I care to admit, here's what I got for my home:

The Apple Airport Extreme w/modem and external antenna connector.

Why?

Pros:
-Robust fault tolerance
-Robust interference tolerance
-Configuration utility does not reside on the station (security)
-Compatibility (haven't found an IEEE 802.11b/g machine that can't use it)
-Most spherical Transmission space.
-Compact.

Cons:
-Pricey (but worth it)
-Needs periodic power cycling (I do it once a month)
-Doesn't feature the ability to schedule connect-ability.

Linksys:
Pros:
-Low-Cost (note the wording, I didn't say cheap)
-Easy to find to buy.

Cons:
-Not very fault-tolerant. Hit it with too many wireless collisions and the transceiver will reset, thus dropping the connection for 2 minutes. Not a problem with less than three machines.
-Antenna are all over the place - 'stringy'
-Planar transmission space (relative to antenna position)
-Administration is contained in-unit.

D-Link:
-Cheap

Cons:
All of the cons of the Linksys, but also has a very strange transmission-space shape: Two blobs. And the range fluctuates more than anything I've yet seen - so don't be near the periphery.
 
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