Totally unscientific test of new Airport Extreme 5

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I just replaced my 10 day old Airport Extreme 4 with a new Airport Extreme 5 and in my opinion, there is a definite increase in range. I have nothing scientific to back this up, just a test of the wifi range on my iPhone4. My office(where the router is) is at one end of the house and the garage is at the other end of the house.

When I set up the AE4, I walked around my small home(2600 Sq feet on one floor) and had only 2 bars by the time I got 2 rooms away. I lost signal totally before I got to the door to the garage.

When I set up the AE5, I had 3 bars in all rooms of the house. I had 2 bars at the back door, I had two bars in my husband's shop(which is attached but not part of the house) and I had 1 bar standing in the driveway to my home outside my garage! I LOVE the new Extreme and I'm very glad I got it.

Just my .$02 since there has not been much information available. Hope it helps somebody
 

BrianLachoreVPI


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Did you buy it online or in an Apple Store?
 
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Local Apple store. Just got their new stock in today
 

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Local Apple store. Just got their new stock in today

Will you confirm the model number for me. I want to order one online - but want to make sure what they're showing online is the new one.
 
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Easy way to remember is that the new one is MD and the old one was MC. Full model # is MD031LL/A
 

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Ok. Great - thanks!
 

dtravis7


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They have upped the Power Output of WiFi in the new AE and new Time Capsule. There was a heads up here on Mac Forums.
 
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I knew they increased the power, but everything that had been out there talked about "in theory this should increase the range" since no services had torn one down or analyzed it in actual use. I thought my experience could help people with a non-theoretical view of the new AE.
 
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So the increased power output aside, is there anything really new about these 2 products?
 

dtravis7


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Baggss, as far as i know just a new 3TB one.
 
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So the big news is some maybe increased range and an overpriced network drive?
 
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MIMO, I think is the other enhancement. I was kind of hoping for QoS integration.
 
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MIMO, I think is the other enhancement. I was kind of hoping for QoS integration.

MIMO has been there since n was in there, it's part of the 802.11n spec
 
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So... the question then is... what, exactly, was the enhancement?
 

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dtravis7


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So as I said....



I don't remember putting the "maybe" in there, which one of you mods did an edit for me?

You don't like power baggss? :D

You had maybe there with I tags around it but one bracket was backwards. I fixed that but the maybe was there.
 
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I have nothing against increased power out, it just seems like they did a refresh that really meant nothing and was simply done because they felt they needed to. Kind of annoys me but at least they didn't make a big deal out of it or anything.
 

dtravis7


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Agreed, they really said nothing. It was the thread here that alerted me to the power being increased.
 
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I really fail to see how anyone could be annoyed. I mean it's not like you're forced to buy it for anything to keep working and they didn't even make an announcement about a new version. Apple didn't publicize the change at all, it was the typical rumor sites making a big deal over something that was again nothing.

We also don't know for sure if there were any other architectural changes, etc.
 

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