Airport Extreme base station - do you recommend it?

[Vinny]

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!

 

[patrick0brien]

-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.