Customer Reviews for Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station MB053LL/A [OLD VERSION]

Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station MB053LL/A [OLD VERSION]
by Apple Computer

	Our Price: $199.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $69.99 (click here) Category: CE See more product details

Customers in the UK, Buy this product at amazon.co.uk for British Pounds

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Customer Review: Thank you Apple for providing me with my first reliable router
Summary: 5 Stars

I bought the Airport Extreme to replace my absolutely horrible Belkin N1 router. Prior to purchasing the Airport Extreme I experienced constant random disconnects, duplicate IP problems, and insufficient range. I am happy to report that the Airport Extreme solved all of these problems in a matter of minutes, while providing me with a boost in speed and some great new features.

I was incredibly surprised when I saw the fast connection speeds that my new router could achieve. I did not expect a huge difference in speed, as my previous router had wireless N capabilities, but the Airport Extreme proved to be much quicker. The range was also greatly improved. My house has a few concrete walls that absolutely destroyed any hope for decent range on my Belkin, but the Airport has been seemingly unaffected. I also enjoy the incredibly useful printer sharing feature. I can't believe that I went for so long without it.

Above all else, this router is a must buy due to its reliability. I have not experienced one network dropout yet. I have a whole lot of devices connected to the Airport at once (3 PC's, 3 Macs, PS3, Wii, PSP, and an iPod Touch) and none of them have any trouble obtaining IP addresses in a matter of seconds. The included Airport Utility is a fantastic application that makes configuring the router a breeze. It may seem standard to expect great, reliable performance from a router, but none of the routers that I have owned have been able to produce the same results as the Airport Extreme. I can not recommend this router highly enough. If you are in the market for a router, you can stop searching. This is the one that you need to buy.

Customer Review: Best Router I've ever owned.
Summary: 5 Stars

I'm not a novice. I know a lot about routers and how they work. I'm also familiar with their limitations, and I can honestly say that this is the best consumer router I've ever used.

I do a lot of downloading with bittorrent clients and this is the first router I've used that allows me to download wirelessly without killing the wifi connection to the other computers in the house, as well as my own ability to browse. Seriously - I've got Azureus crankin' at full speed and I can still enjoy Youtube. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, trust me - that's good. If you do know what I'm talking about, then you know that this is a remarkable product.

People are complaining about compatibility with PC's/Windows, saying that they just can't connect at all. I'd bet money on the fact that this is because they have the Airport set to use WPA2 only, and their PC is probably only set up to use WPA1 - whether it be the Windows wireless settings or the driver/settings for their wireless adapter itself. This can be solved by either updating Windows and/or your wireless driver and settings, or by simply configuring the airport to use both WPA1 and WPA2 (it's a choice in a dropdown menu in the Airport utility). I run Windows via Boot Camp on my MacBook and WPA2 wouldn't work (in Windows) until I upgraded to SP3.

Oh yeah - and the shared printer set-up? Simple and Fast. Awesome.

I feel like a fool for putting off buying the Extreme. Like everyone else, for years I was reluctant to drop this much money on a router. After using it for several months now, I can honestly say it was money well-spent. Highly recommended.

Customer Review: Great product
Summary: 5 Stars

I have to admit I was very impressed with the wireless speeds I was getting with my airport extreme base station. Over wireless at a range of 15 feet I get speeds of about 8-9 MB/s. Thats about as fast as my old home wired networking was... very impressive.

I was slightly less impressed with the gigabit ethernet capability. While transfering an 86 GB file between 2 computers I was getting about 33 MB/s while the max should be about 125 MB/s. Both computers were have gigabit ethernet cards and I was using Cat5e cable to do the transfer. The limiting factor could also have been my computer's write speed (5400 rpm HD,) so I'm not sure whether it was the base station or not but I just was hoping for a bit more speed bacause it takes an extra half hour over the theoretical top speed (40 mins instead of about 12) with that 86 GB file.

The airport disk I like the feature of, but it does have its issues. It is nice for storing backups of stuff but the transfer rates on it are slow and especially with a slower machine (my old 800 mhz imac) you will got lots of the swirly color wheels as your computer tries to mount the shared disk. (It does happen on faster machines also, but only for a second or two.) I was getting transfer speeds with it of about 3-4 MB/s.

All this being said, I think this base station is the best out there for what it does, I just do think it could be better. If i could I would give it 4.5 stars, -1/4 star for the gigabit ethernet speed and -1/4 star for the slow transfer to the disk but thats it.

Customer Review: Set-up a breeze!!
Summary: 5 Stars

I just wanted to post a quick review about setup for this router. I was hesitant based on some of the less-than-stellar reviews here that I was overpaying for this router.

I had a Belkin Pre-N router that was apparently not compatible with Vista 64. Rather than go through the lengthy and complex process of removing Vista from the kid's brand new computer, I decided to upgrade the router. I was torn because the reviews are mixed for all routers, but decided on a router with gigabit ports (for my HP Media Vault and Imac), a USB port to centrally locate my printer and 801.11n for extended range.

I chose the Airport Extreme, not only because it provided what I wanted, but because I perceived it to be easy to setup and adminster. Boy, was I surprised!!! I had the network up and running in less than 10 minutes!! 2 XP laptops, 1 Vista 64 desktop, 1 imac, 1 HP Media Vault, and my Canon MP830 connected to the Airport's USB port.

Amazingly simple and pain-free and worth the $30 premium over the D-Link, Belkin and Linksys I was considering.

So far no dropped connections and the Vista 64 machine hasn't caused any problems or reboots I experienced before.

I only wish it had one more gigabit port! Other than that, this product is great. I haven't had enough time to test it's range or throughput and will update my review after I've had it a while, but if you want a simple setup - THIS IS IT!

Customer Review: Awesome Router!
Summary: 5 Stars

I had a Linksys router before I purchased this one that served me well. However, I began getting too many signal drops. I decided it was time to purchase a new router. I thought this was going to be easy, but it wasn't. I purchased another Linksys router, but I kept getting a signal drop occasionally on my Macbook. It was driving me crazy. I returned it and purchased a D-Link router. I experienced the same problem - dropped signals. So, I bit my lip and bought the Apple Airport - the most money I ever spent on a router. I was at my wits end. Since this was my first Apple router, I wasn't going to wing it in installing it on my computers (a Windows Vista desktop, Dell laptop running Windows XP SP2, and Macbook) - so I called Apple support. Awesome support, let me tell you. The guy walked me through everything I needed to do to set up the router and get all the computer's connected to it. I also have my Canon printer connected through it through the USB port. It works fantastic as well! So far, and I had this router for about 4 months now, I received no dropped signal at all.

Also, let me mention that I have a Nintendo DS that I also use with this router and I've had no problem setting it up either.

Needless to say, I am EXTREMELY pleased with this purchase and definitely recommend this product.

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