Is Airport Express the right solution for me?

[zarusoba]

Hello,

We have a PowerBook G4 and a Sharp Mebius and a 2Wire ADSL Gateway. I'm looking for a wireless internet solution and I'm wondering if Airport Express is the right one.

I don't know much about wireless modems. Telstra offers theirs for $250. I thought Airport Express might be a better solution at $129.

I noticed that this PowerBook has Airport Extreme capabilities (according to the System Profiler). Does that mean I'd be better off with Airport Extreme? Thing is, Extreme costs the same as the Telstra wireless modem.

I noticed that the PC requires 802.11a/b/g/n. What is that and how do I find out if the Mebius has it?

Cheers.

 

[waw74]

Apple's naming is weird.
they use extreme, to refer to both a base station type, and a speed (i belive it is 802.11G)

All current models of airport base stations (express, extreme, time capsule) support 802.11 a/b/g/n.

802.11 is the technical name for wi-fi
the letters basically specify different speeds.
wikipedia is your friend - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11

The G4 should be b/g, and I'm guessing the mebius is probably b/g also.

You would be fine with an older model express (b/g) off of ebay, but the current model express would work too.

the only reason to go with the extreme is if you wanted to hook a hard drive to it.
The express gives you airtunes which is remote speaker jack for itunes. just plug your speakers into the express, and you have music in the other room.

 

[zarusoba]

OK thanks for the reply.

I went out and bought an Airport Express today and we are both wireless.

Setup wasn't quite as smooth as I'd thought it would be because the first unit was apparently faulty (Apple Tech Support advised me of this) and I had to return it to the store and get another one.

The problem was that the Airport Utility couldn't find the Airport device. This happened even with the replacement unit. It also happened on my partner's PC. I ended up going into System Prefs> Airport and somehow connected it that way. My partner had to do a similar thing in Win XP.

All up I'm very happy with Airport now, but I think the Airport Utility could be better.