Upgrading to an Airport Extreme

[Deprecation]

Recently, I have been having troubles with my Linksys WRT54-GL. I've started to looking into other wireless solutions, most notably the Airport Extreme. However, I have a few questions.

1. How reliable (in your experience) has the Extreme been?
2. Is 802.11n worth upgrading to right now? Or will 802.11ac become main stream fast enough that it's worth waiting?

Thanks in advance.

 

[rkdiddy]

Recently, I have been having troubles with my Linksys WRT54-GL. I've started to looking into other wireless solutions, most notably the Airport Extreme. However, I have a few questions.

1. How reliable (in your experience) has the Extreme been?
2. Is 802.11n worth upgrading to right now? Or will 802.11ac become main stream fast enough that it's worth waiting?

Thanks in advance.

1. The AE is a solid router.
2. Eventually, but unless you have an AC compatible device it's a moot point.

I would say go ahead and pull the trigger.

 

[Deprecation]

Thanks!

 

[Quu]

I have the Airport Extreme but I wouldn't recommend you to buy one.

Now don't get me wrong there is nothing technically wrong with the Airport Extreme but there are better routers out there with 802.11ac for the same price. Specifically the Asus RT-AC66U. This router has over 1.2Gb/ps of internal bandwidth (which is about 4x higher than the Airport Extreme) it has three large antennas for great signal and of course its signature feature 802.11ac support. In-fact this router supports A,B,G,N and AC.

It has every feature the Airport Extreme has and more. Both of these routers cost around the $180-$190 mark so in my opinion future proof yourself with the Asus one, little point in buying in to old technology even though none of your devices today are 802.11ac equipped you'll probably keep this router for 5 years or more.

 

[boed]

I have the Airport Extreme but I wouldn't recommend you to buy one.

Now don't get me wrong there is nothing technically wrong with the Airport Extreme but there are better routers out there with 802.11ac for the same price. Specifically the Asus RT-AC66U. This router has over 1.2Gb/ps of internal bandwidth (which is about 4x higher than the Airport Extreme) it has three large antennas for great signal and of course its signature feature 802.11ac support. In-fact this router supports A,B,G,N and AC.

It has every feature the Airport Extreme has and more. Both of these routers cost around the $180-$190 mark so in my opinion future proof yourself with the Asus one, little point in buying in to old technology even though none of your devices today are 802.11ac equipped you'll probably keep this router for 5 years or more.

I'll admit - I've bought Airports for years (although the first ones were crap) but I'm thinking about getting the Asus this time around myself. I need 3 of them for streaming 1080p content so they'll be bridged together. If apple started anouncing their release schedule I'd know if I should wait but rumors are we won't be seeing an airport 802.11ac this year.

 

[Ledgem]

Recently, I have been having troubles with my Linksys WRT54-GL. I've started to looking into other wireless solutions, most notably the Airport Extreme. However, I have a few questions.

1. How reliable (in your experience) has the Extreme been?
2. Is 802.11n worth upgrading to right now? Or will 802.11ac become main stream fast enough that it's worth waiting?

Thanks in advance.

Since this thread is now a few weeks old, my guess is that you've already made your purchase. I'm so pleased with my Airport Extreme that I'll give a reply anyway.

1. It's extremely reliable. I've been through about five or six routers that I can briefly think of, and most were stable except under load. Running torrents or video chatting would cause many to slow down or freeze up, requiring a reboot at the end of a session or sometimes even mid-way through. Many required reboots every month or so even if activity was light. Prior to the Airport Extreme, the only router I've used that remained stable even through rough activity and over time was the D-Link DGL-4300 (now discontinued). That was a beautiful router... and of course, being newer, the Airport Extreme (5th gen for me) has even more features. I've stress-tested mine with video chatting for long periods, and intentionally ran multiple torrents with increased peer limits. I have not yet been forced to reboot the router over stability issues.

2. It's always hard to tell how quickly a new technology will be adopted. 802.11g was seemingly very fast, while 802.11n was drawn out over problems with the draft process (which led many companies to charge ahead and release "draft n" products). 802.11ac looks to be on-track to have a quick rollout. However, quick or not, everything that's new is expensive. Can you afford it, do you really need it now, can you really make use of it now?

My personal opinion is that wireless N is fine. I'd like more speed, but don't absolutely need it. For that matter, it's only been within the past year that the majority of my devices supported 802.11n. I'm not willing to undertake the expense of replacing everything (or even the core components) with 802.11ac devices right when 802.11ac comes out. My plan is to wait. 802.11ac will filter into devices as I replace them, and when I have enough 802.11ac devices (or when my current Airport Extreme starts fizzling out), then I'll upgrade to an 802.11ac router. It'll take more time, but it's the cheaper route

 

[macleod199]

Since this thread is now a few weeks old, my guess is that you've already made your purchase. I'm so pleased with my Airport Extreme that I'll give a reply anyway.

1. It's extremely reliable. I've been through about five or six routers that I can briefly think of, and most were stable except under load. Running torrents or video chatting would cause many to slow down or freeze up, requiring a reboot at the end of a session or sometimes even mid-way through. Many required reboots every month or so even if activity was light. Prior to the Airport Extreme, the only router I've used that remained stable even through rough activity and over time was the D-Link DGL-4300 (now discontinued). That was a beautiful router... and of course, being newer, the Airport Extreme (5th gen for me) has even more features. I've stress-tested mine with video chatting for long periods, and intentionally ran multiple torrents with increased peer limits. I have not yet been forced to reboot the router over stability issues.

2. It's always hard to tell how quickly a new technology will be adopted. 802.11g was seemingly very fast, while 802.11n was drawn out over problems with the draft process (which led many companies to charge ahead and release "draft n" products). 802.11ac looks to be on-track to have a quick rollout. However, quick or not, everything that's new is expensive. Can you afford it, do you really need it now, can you really make use of it now?

My personal opinion is that wireless N is fine. I'd like more speed, but don't absolutely need it. For that matter, it's only been within the past year that the majority of my devices supported 802.11n. I'm not willing to undertake the expense of replacing everything (or even the core components) with 802.11ac devices right when 802.11ac comes out. My plan is to wait. 802.11ac will filter into devices as I replace them, and when I have enough 802.11ac devices (or when my current Airport Extreme starts fizzling out), then I'll upgrade to an 802.11ac router. It'll take more time, but it's the cheaper route

Have to agree. I recently upgraded to the newest AEBS from the first 802.11n version, and I've always been quite happy. Easy to configure, even for IPv6. Never, ever flakes out.

The only problems I ever had was trying to use the USB disk sharing - particularly with Time Machine (which was officially unsupported, anyway).