There definitely has to be something said about the higher prices Apple charges for their computers, laptops, and other hardware. I just bought the Airport Extreme Base Station ( Wireless Network Router ) to replace my 4 year old Netgear router which was still plugging along, but sadly lagging behind the new standards that increase the throughput and security of a wireless network. Although there are plenty of well-performing, secure, and respected network routers on the market for 1/3 the price, I went ahead and bought the Airport Extreme just to complement the MacBook Pro I recently purchased for Visual Studio 2008 Development.
It was more of a curiosity thing, really. I wanted to see just how easy and plug-n-play the Airport Extreme was and whether my other laptops and PCs could connect to it effortlessly. I was also curious about the ability to attach a printer and/or external hard-drive to the back of the Airport Extreme and share them as well.
Installing and Configuring AirPort Extreme
Let's just say that it was easy to install and configure as advertised, which it better be for $180 :) Seriously, despite some of the reviews you read where people had problems with it ( which is either user error or a defective unit ), it is embarassingly easy to install and configure the AirPort Extreme. I did the following
- Installed the Aiport Utility on my MacBook Pro and got it up and running.
- Connected the old Western Digital External Hard-Drive to the back of the Airport Extreme
- Connected the Aiport Extreme to the Cable Modem
- Turned on the Airport Extreme and waited for it to finish initializing
- Connected to the Airport Extreme via the Airport Utility on the MacBook Pro
- Plugged in some passwords and pretty much accepted the network configuration defaults
- Saved the configuration
The only extra thing I had to do because the cable modem did not like me removing the old router and connecting a new one is unplug the power to the cable modem and re-connect it as a way of resetting it. As soon as I did that, the Airport Extreme went solid green and away we go!
As far as other laptops connecting to it wirelessly, they worked flawlessly without installing any software.
Sharing External Hard-Drive and Printer
There is a USB Connection on the back of the Airport Extreme that you can either connect a printer or external hard-drive to, or via a USB Hub, apparently connect both at the same time. This works as well with no effort. I don't have a USB Hub to attach both an external hard-drive and printer at the same time to the back of the AirPort Extreme, but I have tried them individually and got it to work flawlessly from the MacBook Pro.
I haven't tried sharing them from the other PC laptops yet as they are going through a reformatting as we speak. I will probably try it tonight or tomorrow.
Conclusion
Unless you are big on Apple Products, curious as I was, or could really put to use the printer and hard-drive sharing via the external USB connection on the back of the AirPort Extreme, you can definitely save a few bucks and get a good quality wireless network router for less money. That being said, it was pretty dang easy to get up and running.
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Hope this helps.
Dave