Airport Express or Extreme?

[besler3035]

I'm looking at getting wireless internet for my house - I have an iBook G4 and a few years old Windows XP machine. The only problem is with the XP machine, which doesn't have a network card installed.

So, here are my options:
1) Get Airport Express and buy the network card for the XP machine.
2) Get Airport Extreme and route a network cable to the XP machine and the Extreme from our cable modem.

We might eventually go non-Windows, but right now it's not really an option. Any feedback would be great!

 

[elfin buddy]

Depends..

It depends on what you want to do with it. I am in love with my Airport Express, but that's because it's exactly what I was looking for. I love having wireless music, and it's small enough to take anywhere with me. I intend to buy a printer to hook up to it (wirelessly, of course) in the Fall.

However, it does have its limitations. I recently got back from university to find my father contemplating buying his own wireless network. The only problem is that his iBook didn't have a wireless card, and neither does the house iMac. The iMac is oldschool, and doesn't support wireless at all. So, if we were to use my Airport Express as a house base station, the iMac would be left out. Unless we bought a wired router...etc etc etc...

If we were to buy an Airport Extreme base station (or D-Link or anything else), it would allow us to network all the computers, but wouldn't let us play music wirelessly...etc etc etc...

Bottom line is that the Express is wonderful if you're going to be moving around a lot, like wireless music, or if you're sure that all of the computers that might want network access fully support 802.11b/g. The Extreme is great for plain old wired and unwired networking. Period.

Unless you drool at the idea of having wireless music from anywhere in your house (I found it great at university where I would lie on my bed with my PowerBook, completely free of cables, and control my stereo while having a video chat with friends thousands of kilometres away. Wonderfully easy!), I would recommend you get the Extreme base station. But, again, get what suits your lifestyle most!

Enjoy wireless freedom!