Little over six years ago I bought the 802.11g and, sadly, it's time to replace her (unless someone has a trick for getting it to power up again). I'm not overly excited about dumping $180 on a wireless router (2-3x the cost of other solutions) just because it's Apple, so
a) am I missing something that makes the AirPort Extreme Base Station that much better?
b) does anyone have experience working with something else that they would suggest I pick up?
At the very least, I've no interest in a time capsule. If I ever feel the need to back up wirelessly I'll plug one of my externals into the base station.
Thanks for your input.
Here's my honest opinion I originally had a AEBS (gigabit non-dualband) and used that for awhile, but I REALLY wanted a Dual Band solution, and didn't go with the new AEBS, and bought a top of the line D-Link router, it was actually more expensive than the AEBS, and it worked okay, but couldn't used basically any of the good stuff in it, because it was geared towards Windows users, don't get me wrong it was an awesome router, but it just didn't cater to Mac users well, and I kept having to unplug it once in awhile or nothing would work.
So I used it for about a month or so, and for the most part it was a decent router. My friend was in the market for a new router, so I told him if he bought me a Dual-Band AEBS I would trade him straight up for it, so that's what we did, now I have an AEBS with 2 harddrives attached, and a printer, all working flawlessly, all the features work, I never have to restart it, AND when I found that it wouldn't quite reach to my porch, I extended the network with an Airport Express, simple setup and it works great, and yesterday I found a Time Capsule super cheap (wasn't in the market for one) so I added that to my network, and use it as a wireless hub and backup solution.
My point is, there are some VERY nice routers, but they are for the most part geared towards Windows users, and I agree that Apple routers and a tad expensive, but it all works seamlessly with your Mac computers, and if you want to extend the network easily, all you have to do is buy an Airport Express and bam!
My suggestion would be don't make the same mistake I did and go with a non-Apple router, because you'll find that the functionality you need isn't going to be there, and you'll end up spending more to get the AEBS.
Just my .02
Andrew
