Airport Express: should I buy one?

[flowagner]

Well ... this is kinda pathetic: me, asking others if I should buy something. Anyway, I don't come to a conclusion arguing this thru with myself so I wanted to ask you if you would buy one if you were in my situation.

- I already have a Linksys router at home, broadcasting wireless. When I am on my desk, I plug in the internet cable, tho because the reception is bad because of thick walls at home.

- I am a frequent flyer and I have about 5 intercontinental / around the world trips per year. I stay in hotels quite often and I use their wired/wireless connection when available.

- I do not have a stereo or so, only a JBL creature system.

- Nobody but me on the network prints on my printer and I don't even have it plugged in most of the time.


Buying an Airport Express would give me a good net reception in my study room so I would not need the cable anymore. Plus: I could take it with me when I am on my travels. If I plug in my JBL's to the Airport Express, does it also have the option to playback videos on VLC over wireless or is it just iTunes sounds?

On the other side, I am not sure whether the benefits justify the investment

Please help
Flo

 

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

The only way to play sound through the Express is to use iTunes so you would have to put any videos that you have into iTunes and play them through there.

If I were in your situation, I would probably get one to eliminate the wire and make it a little easier when I travel.

Good luck on your decision.

 

[waw74]

there is a program called airfoil that will let you play any sound out of the express, video gets tricky because of sync issues, but they also make a video player to get around this problem although not as full featured as VLC.
and itunes will only put out audio from music (not from video) over the express.

it is nice to have when traveling in a hotel room with a wired only connection.

it can play music in sync with your computer speakers, so you could have the laptop in one room and the express in another plugged into the JBL.
and if you are listing to music over airtunes it's nice because all the system beeps, mail sent sound, and IM noises don't come over the big speakers, just your laptop's built-in speakers.
I had mine hooked up for this very reason in my "office"

 

[nsbio]

The only way to play sound through the Express is to use iTunes so you would have to put any videos that you have into iTunes and play them through there.

Good luck on your decision.

As was already mentioned, Airfoil does the same and more (allows you to play sound wirelessly from any application). I have an old version of the program and it is OK, although I do not use it that much - mostly to listen to NHL broadcasts in windows media format.

As for whether to buy an Airport Express or not, sure. It is not that big of an investment anyway, esp. if you get a refurbished one. I have been using them for over two years: the first one (g version) lasted me two years before quitting for good; the second one (N version) has been good for a few months so far. Regarding reliability of wireless signal, the old version gave me a hiccup or two once in a while; the new one has been flawless since I got it a couple of months ago. I use the AI around my apartment with no problem.

Oh, it also supports international voltage (220V). I took it to my trip home (to Russia) and it was quite convenient. (Actually, my G Airport Express quit working while in Russia after about a month into the trip, but I suspect it was simply bad luck and not the electrical outlet/power problem, since my PB and other computers were continually plugged into the same grid no problem).