New Airport Express

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Is there any sign of a New Airport Express base station? I am looking into buying one, but I want to buy the newest version as long as I have the money for it.
 
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I sure hope so. I'm planning on grabbing a few more of those suckers when they become 802.11n. I have the current 802.11g model, which I use as a travel router and for wireless music streaming at home, and I absolutely love it. I think Apple's wireless technology is really overlooked by the techie population...I had no idea they had all this great stuff out; I was content with my DD-WRT-flashed Linksys & Buffalo routers in the past!
 
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Base stations were updated to 802.11n... WWDC maybe? And silently updated with gigabit ethernet a little while ago... maybe at the iMac announcements?

I'd buy now if you need it. They're still (very) new.
 
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Base stations were updated to 802.11n... WWDC maybe? And silently updated with gigabit ethernet a little while ago... maybe at the iMac announcements?

I'd buy now if you need it. They're still (very) new.

He is referring to the Airport Express, not the Airport Extreme. The Airport Express routers are still 802.11g.
 
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If you're wanting it as a router then I'd say just go for a newer (and more feature full) product like the Extreme.

If you want it for the music streaming then it's plenty good as it is.

If you're wanting it for both, and can't afford a newer router aswell then you don't really have much of an option.

I do like the idea of using it as a travel router, but even then I doubt you're going to set up a network of computers in a hotel room/apartment; it's most likely just for wireless internet browsing for which G is more than adequate. Even if you are wanting to file share between a couple of computers, as it's only on a temporary basis I'm sure you'll get along just fine with G.... we all have for years.
 
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If you're wanting it as a router then I'd say just go for a newer (and more feature full) product like the Extreme.

If you want it for the music streaming then it's plenty good as it is.

If you're wanting it for both, and can't afford a newer router aswell then you don't really have much of an option.

I do like the idea of using it as a travel router, but even then I doubt you're going to set up a network of computers in a hotel room/apartment; it's most likely just for wireless internet browsing for which G is more than adequate. Even if you are wanting to file share between a couple of computers, as it's only on a temporary basis I'm sure you'll get along just fine with G.... we all have for years.

First issue is the Extreme is more than double the price of the Express. Second is it would be nice to keep 802.11n in a mesh network. You can setup like 4 Airport Express units and tie them to an Airport Extreme base station so that you can cover your whole house plus have wireless music in every room. So you can have a centralized printer for your family, speakers in your bedroom, the kitchen, the family room, and the living room, and have no deadspots inside your house or outside on your deck. Except that you don't get the full 802.11n with the current Airport Express, so if you want to stream movies or copy large files you're hosed.

For a travel router, there's no reason for it to be 802.11n. There are like two people in the world who have 100mbps Internet, and even then most servers lock you into something like 300kbps download speeds despite your Internet connection, so it'd be pretty useless unless you needed the extra range. I REALLY like the Aiport Express as a travel router; I just drove across the country to help a friend move and it was immensely useful. I had no idea Apple had all this cool networking stuff before. I hope they continue to expand on it; I'd really like to see an Airport Extreme base station with some RAID levels for USB drives (easy, secure file server!) and maybe some advanced features like a built-in VPN server so I don't have to have a seperate app running on a computer at home to login remotely.
 
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The range of extreme is plenty. Locate it centrally in your house, and you won't need to extend your range (unless you have a house made entirely of cement, or live in a 30,000 square foot mansion).
 
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The Airport Extreme is awesome, I set mine up yesterday. I enjoy the added range and built in support for my printer and harddrive. The only downside is no airtunes (which would be handy for me because the port I route from is next to my speakers.) I'm so much more happy with it than the linxys and zyxel routers I've used in the past. But I've heard some bad things about the airport express and it's reliability issues.

SLC
 
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Well this will be a travel router but I am not in desperate need of it right now If there will be an update then I can wait until I need it. And I will be using it for file transfer and music streaming while not traveling.
 

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