Airport Extreme - from 4th to 6th gen?

Hi all,

After getting fed up with my ISP modem/router (Virgin Media Superhub 3.0 802.11ac), I've decided to get a second-hand Airport Extreme. Ours is a small 2-bedroom flat, and the router is in the middle of the flat. There is a 2010 iMac directly connected via Gigabit Ethernet which serves as a home server for Plex and Time Machine backups, a 2013 MBA (802.11ac), a 2010 MB (802.11n), a Playstation 3 (802.11g), a Samsung Smart TV (802.11n), and two smartphones: a iPhone 5c (802.11n) that will soon replaced by an SE (802.11ac), and my Moto X Play (802.11n). We've recently upgraded to 50Mbps fibre optic broadband.

Given that there is only 1 (soon to be 2) 802.11ac devices, and ours is a small flat, I thought that a 4th-gen 802.11n Airport Extreme would be enough for our needs and ordered one for £35 second hand. I very rarely transfer large files within the local network -the only one I can think of was when I did the first Time Machine backup on the MBA and MB but that was a one-off.

I have yet to receive the AE, but I have been considering whether I made the wrong choice and should have gone for the £90 6th-gen Airport Extreme with 802.11ac support (or even the 5th-gen at £50).

What do you guys think?

 

Thanks a lot for your reply and article. Do you think the difference would be noticeable even over small distances? Since the flat is small and the router is centrally located, at most we are talking about a 10m (30ft) distance between device and router.