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Airport Extreme the best router for us?

lovinwaves

lovinwaves

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 16, 2009
8
0
Kansas City, Missouri
***My main question I am asking is is this worth the money, or should we save some money and just get a LInksys Router??****

I'm a noob, so sorry if this is a stupid question.

We have a 4 year old Linksys router. It needs to be replaced.

DH just bought a Aiport Extreme and wanted me to make sure this is the best option for us before we open it.

Not sure what specs you need...

- New macbook pro (primary user, and will be used A LOT)
- iPod Touch
- 4 or 5 year old G5 iMac
- potentially 2 iPhones in the future
- need to be able to print on a printer hooked up to the PC in the basement (this is a huge issue for me since we always have 'spooling' errors, maybe because it's my mac trying to print through a PC???)


Hooking it up to a PC running on XP. The PC is about 9 years old, but has had some upgrades.

We have Standard High Speed Online (up to 10 Mbps)
 
the Airport Extreme has some nice features to it.
it is a gateway router, usb printer server and has the ability to support two seperate networks.
then again, I have a netwrk printer and my $40 linksys performs just as well and better with the xboxes
like they say your mileage may vary
 
Is it worth it to spend the extra money to get the apple router, or shall we choose a cheaper Linksys router? DH works at Best Buy and probably gets a decent discount on Linksys routers (not the apple ones though).

My main problem right now is that I can't print anything. There seems to be issues with my macbook pro connecting with his ancient PC downstairs (which the printer is hooked up too). I believe it's called a spooling issue? Will this Extreme fix that problem??
 
lovinwaves said:
Is it worth it to spend the extra money to get the apple router, or shall we choose a cheaper Linksys router? DH works at Best Buy and probably gets a decent discount on Linksys routers (not the apple ones though). My main problem right now is that I can't print anything. There seems to be issues with my macbook pro connecting with his ancient PC downstairs (which the printer is hooked up too). I believe it's called a spooling issue? Will this Extreme fix that problem??
Click to expand...

Firstly, I have tried every brand router available, but they all failed within months or just out of their warranty as most are cheap plastic garbage. I bought my first Apple Airport Extreme back in 2007, setup was new to me as this was my first apple router but I figured it out, including port forwarding etc. Back then the Airport Extreme had no dual band support or gigabit Ethernet.

Secondly, This router ran 24/7 for 3 years and never missed a beat. Within the last week, it started dropping all wireless connections for no reason and intermittently. This was a sign it was starting to die, as Ethernet directly from the modem worked perfectly. But 3 years is a damn long run, in fact it's lifetime surpassed every other router I have owned. Now that is quality.

I purchased the new model only a couple of days ago with more features, and actually AU$30 cheaper than the previous model, and it performs faster than ever. It also supports print sharing via Bonjour. I recommend the Airport Extreme.
 
lovinwaves said:
Is it worth it to spend the extra money to get the apple router, or shall we choose a cheaper Linksys router? DH works at Best Buy and probably gets a decent discount on Linksys routers (not the apple ones though).

My main problem right now is that I can't print anything. There seems to be issues with my macbook pro connecting with his ancient PC downstairs (which the printer is hooked up too). I believe it's called a spooling issue? Will this Extreme fix that problem??
Click to expand...
The spooling issue is with your PC so I doubt the AEBS can solve that. You can, however, hook up the printer to the AEBS (if its a USB printer) and print from either Mac or PC. This is the better solution as it does not require the PC to be on to print.
 
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