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Airport Extreme or Netgear?

D

deetschei

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 9, 2005
40
0
I recently went to my campus computer store, determined to buy an airport extreme base station. My resolve cracked, however, when confronted with the fact that I would need to pay over 100 dollars for an old "non-extreme" airport card for my 800mHz iMac, which made the additional 179 for the airport extreme base station seem slightly pricey. Before I even mentioned price issues, however, the customer service rep. advised me to buy a Netgear WGR 614 B5. Do any of you have experience with either/both of these products? He claimed the Netgear was "complicated" to set up, but ultimately it was a better buy. :confused:
 
deetschei said:
I recently went to my campus computer store, determined to buy an airport extreme base station. My resolve cracked, however, when confronted with the fact that I would need to pay over 100 dollars for an old "non-extreme" airport card for my 800mHz iMac, which made the additional 179 for the airport extreme base station seem slightly pricey. Before I even mentioned price issues, however, the customer service rep. advised me to buy a Netgear WGR 614 B5. Do any of you have experience with either/both of these products? He claimed the Netgear was "complicated" to set up, but ultimately it was a better buy. :confused:
Click to expand...

I would advise against Netgear, a lot of people seem to have problems with them. I can't speak for the airport, but my DLink router and my sons Linksys router have been completely trouble-free.
 
My netgear (WGR614) was SOOOOOOOOO easy to set up, the directions are pretty clear, and the web page control panel is easy to use.. just follow the instruction card that you get in the package.
(1 Ax, 1 airport, and 1 linksys pci and 3 plugged into the ethernet ports)
 
I use a Liknsys WRT54G router, and it has perfrmed flawlessly. It wouldeasily be my first choice after an AirPort Extreme base station.
 
The Airport Extreme is quite nice, and unbelievably easy to configure. If you don't need the USB printer port, though, the price is too high for a simple wireless router. If you don't need a wired port for any computers, the Airport Express makes a nice lower-cost alternative.

Having said that - a lot of people seem quite happy with the Linksys WRT54G.

Also, don't those iMacs already have an Ethernet port? Is there a reason it'd have to be wireless?
 
I have a netgear WGT624 router, and have no complaints about it. It's easy enough to set up, and has had no problems. It has good performance, and can be found for way less than any airport system.
 
dsharits said:
I use a Liknsys WRT54G router, and it has perfrmed flawlessly. It wouldeasily be my first choice after an AirPort Extreme base station.
Click to expand...

This is a great router. Add 3rd party firmware and its hands down the best sub $100 (its about $40 at best buy with rebates) router you'll find.
 
This is all great info, thanks so much! I have one additional question I forgot to mention- I was informed that Netgear had interface issues with the SBC DSL modems, as they themselves have internal fledgling routers (?) or something. Does anyone know if the Airport Base station or Linksys have similar issues?
 
deetschei said:
This is all great info, thanks so much! I have one additional question I forgot to mention- I was informed that Netgear had interface issues with the SBC DSL modems, as they themselves have internal fledgling routers (?) or something. Does anyone know if the Airport Base station or Linksys have similar issues?
Click to expand...

I used the, afformentioned, Linksys WRT54G router with SBC DSL with no problems whatsoever.
 
At my house, we use a Netger router that was very easy to connect to our SBC Yahoo! DSL.

I reccomend Netgear to anyone looking, *very* inexpensive, and plenty easy to setup. I've never had any trouble with any of the three that I own (in multiple locations).

Rather than make this a Netgear vs. Linksys debate, it's pretty obvious that AirPort is out of the picture. It's just too expensive to be worth it. You can get the same technology for 1/3 the cost. And speaking of cost, you shouldn't have to spend *over* $100 for a traditional AirPort card. It should be *less* than $100, don't let them rip you off.
 
I have a DLink DI-624 wireless/wired router. I really like it. It replaced my old wi-fi b LinkSys router, which was alright, but I like the firmware features on the DLink much better - this could partly be just because it is newer though, my old LinkSys was purchased about three years ago. I have not used NetGear, so I cannot comment on those routers. All in all, these three companies seem to be comparable when it comes to quality, price and feature set. If nothing else the more advanced features may vary between these or you may like the GUI/setup of one better than the others.

I would agree that Apple's Airport stuff seems like a really bad choice. It is quite expensive for the features you get. I purchased an Airport Express several months ago to use with iTunes, but I couldn't hook it up to my network the way that I wanted and I was unimpressed with the configuration tools so I returned it. I really did not like the software used to update the Airport firmware - I much prefer a web-based interface for these tasks.
 
I have a DrayTek Vigor 2600G, it's a great router with built in ADSL, Print Server, and VPN Server, + all the usual bits.

The VPN Server is just about the most valuable feature (I can connect securely to my home network from anywhere), I haven't seen another router with it (though I haven't look much recently).
 
Strange.

I've used my powerbook wirelessly with a Netgear router for well over a year and a half and haven't experienced any problems at all. If you went with the Netgear router, I would recommend trying some third party firmware
 
Westside guy said:
Also, don't those iMacs already have an Ethernet port? Is there a reason it'd have to be wireless?
Click to expand...

I don't know if this guys reason is the same as mine, but I use wireless internet (Linksys Router) because I can't install wires, plus Wireless is so damn easy and still very fast that it doesnt make sense to use Wired.
 
dotdotdot said:
I don't know if this guys reason is the same as mine, but I use wireless internet (Linksys Router) because I can't install wires, plus Wireless is so damn easy and still very fast that it doesnt make sense to use Wired.
Click to expand...
This is also basically why I asked in the first place- I'm moving into a house with three other grad students, and the notion of all those ethernet cables tripping us up is simply a pain.
it looks like apple is definitely out of the question, and I think i'm moving towards the linksys, the more i read up on it. :) :)
 
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