Airport Extreme

[Emanuele]

HI all!



Probably this has been discussed already but I could not find anything on the search: for some reason it does not shows results.

Anyway, I have presently a 2 years old Linksys 54G Router that works and always worked flawlessly.
I'm considering though, switching to the Airport Extreme Router since I retired my PC and have an all Mac office as of now.

The very attractive feature that the Airport has is the USB port for the printer and an eventual HDD!

Question is if I should spend $190 on it? Is it worth it, considering that everything works as it should, with my present router?

Thank you.
Emanuele

 

[rfrankl]

I love mine. Have had no problems. Software is very easy to set up also.

 

[RaceTripper]

I am not happy with mine. I had Linksys and it was reliable and trouble free. My AEBS (I have 2) have been flakey, and my Airport disk has become unusable with Leopard. Anytime my MBP goes to sleep I can never access (remount) my airdisk without reseting the AEBS. I also have lots of problems with VPN passthrough not working correctly, with the AEBS constantly dropping its WAN connection when I'm running the VPN client.

I'm close to just getting rid of mine and going back to Linksys, which cost half as much and never gave me problems. I love my MBP, ACD, and iPhone. But the AEBS have been crappy.

 

[synth3tik]

Mine is great, love it. I have a printer hooked up to the USB, my laserjet hooked up to ethernet, the G3 on ethernet, and a 2TB storage drive hooked up to ethernet. Absolutely wonderful. I would go for it.

 

[plumosa]

I really like mine! Plus I got a refurbished one so it was something more like 125 which makes it a lot easier to swing.

 

[stubeeef]

is there anyone having issues with leopard?

I just bought a refurb extreme to use the HDD feature with a refurb 17" 2.0ghz c2d and leopard together under $1k refurb!

 

[Emanuele]

Thanks guys!!
I guess I will not eat for a week and go for it! In any case I will still have my Linksys as a backup if I get into any trouble!

Emanuele

 

[macleod199]

Thanks guys!!
I guess I will not eat for a week and go for it! In any case I will still have my Linksys as a backup if I get into any trouble!

Emanuele

I would actually recommend waiting for the next firmware upgrade... 7.2.1 has issues (problems with seeing the external HD, NAT-PMP not working at all), and with the new models you can't downgrade to the working 7.1.1 version. I'm using 7.1.1 and am happy, but otherwise wouldn't be.

 

[Emanuele]

oh, I see..... thanks for that macleod199!
But isn't the firmware upgradable via software?

 

[JimmyDThing]

oh, I see..... thanks for that macleod199!
But isn't the firmware upgradable via software?

I'm not sure what your question is. You will be able to download the firmware the second it is available. If you plan on leaving an external drive on your AEBS, realize that you will have to periodically have to mount/dismount on your mac in order for your mac's on the network to be able to see it again.

 

[Emanuele]

well, since macleod said that it would be better to wait for the next firmware upgrade, I thought that I would be better off waiting to buy the AEBS until the next firmware will be released!

 

[JimmyDThing]

well, since macleod said that it would be better to wait for the next firmware upgrade, I thought that I would be better off waiting to buy the AEBS until the next firmware will be released!

No... not necessarily. If you need a router and like the USB port functionality, then buy it whenever... but be forewarned that there are issues with it. There is a linksys draft-n router with a USB port, also, if you want to look into it.

I have the Airport... it's been very reliable for me as far as functioning as a wireless draft-n router with both Mac's and PCs wireless and not... my issue with it is with airport disk, which isn't working properly, as mentioned above.

 

[suneohair]

I hope I like mine. Apple is hooking me up with one for free because of my iPhone issues

 

[Emanuele]

Thanks Jimmy! Appreciate your help.
I guess I will buy it and see what happens, in any case I can always bring it back!