Customer Reviews and Ratings

4.5 out of 5 stars

Based on 404 reviews

  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    BEST....

    • Written by from Laval

    This thing is amazing....
    Easy to set up,great range and now,my iMac,apple TV and IPod touch+2 windows computers are connected and working flawlessly ...
    Love it.
    Great...

    2 of 4 people found this useful

  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    I've had enough of the management and configuration limitations

    • Written by from Austin

    TLDR; works like a champ, you just can't get it to do what you want it to do.

    The 5th generation of the Airport Extreme is probably one of the best if not the best wireless access points I've ever used on a semi-regular basis. Wireless clients negotiate connection establishment very quickly and maintain that connection despite long distances or interference between the access point and the client. The wireless connection outperforms any other router I've used at my home or work, it doesn't matter if you're going through walls or having to compete with a microwave; this thing blows anything Linksys has ever offered to the public as a consumer or prosumer product. Wired gigabit works as expected.

    Then why the one star you ask? Well, because you simply cannot mange this piece of hardware like any decent nerd expects to manage their primary router or even just a wireless access point. The new airport utility only operates on a MAC(so yes you must have a MAC device of some kind to manage this thing) and the utility gets dumber with every generation. There are hacks to get the previous generation of the utility running on OSX 10.8 but the idea that Apple does really care about end users being able to manage the primary network safety device for most home networks irks me. Do they expect us to have a Cisco PIX or ASA between the wireless access point and our WAN connection? Was there an outcrying from an unbelievably large mass of Apple users that previous iterations of the utility were too confusing to use? And what happened to Windows support?

    12 of 20 people found this useful

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    22 months, and the Extreme just quit.

    • Written by from Ponte Vedra Beach

    I know, I know, electronics are not perfect and all that. But after paying a lot for a router, and expecting it to last up to 5 years is not unreasonable. Mine did not. My first significant Apple product failure in 30+ years. Worked great while it worked. Easy setup. No troubles. Surprisingly poor quality and reliability for an Apple product. And, there was no recourse for me other than to purchase a new one. I was left out in the cold by Apple. Disappointing to say the least.

    8 of 13 people found this useful

  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Apple's slipping

    • Written by from Kenmore

    This is the best router in every way.
    But after doing the newest firmware update my device is no longer functional. People are ranting about this on Apple forums. Apple will not fix it or acknowledge the problem. If your device is it off
    warranty, you're on your own.
    A lot of people are doing downgrade hack jobs taking it back to 6.1. The problem with that is after the downgrade you can never upgrade your device. Not too mention you can only do it from an iPad. Not interested in spending money on a device I'm not interested in in order too fix Apple's poor firmware update and poor customer support.

    26 of 32 people found this useful

  • 3.0 out of 5 stars

    Needs some work...

    • Written by from MUNDELEIN

    I read many reviews before purchasing the 5th Gen Airport Extreme base station, after more than a decade of Linksys. If it just worked like it should, I'd have been happy. It's not the speed or the strength of the signal, but the reliability that mattered to me. I just want something that works.
    The first months or two it worked really well. I thought I made a smart decision because the Linksys always drops out for no discernible reason, and I was so sick and tired out the power-off and power-on to make it work again. But the AEBS did not last long.
    The first time the AEBS dropped out, the light was green. There was no sign of any problem other than that I have no net connection. When I started Airport Utility, it could not find the base station at all.
    I find the Airport Utility to be one of the most useless piece of software of all. It never solved any problems when you have one, and it only works when there are no problems at all.
    Apple is no better at building routers, only its hardware looks better and costs more.
    The first unplug/plug lasted 22 days, the 2nd, 8 days. The last two resets were only 2 days apart.
    There are something fundamentally challenging to all the base station makers. I am not sure if it is the heat, accumulation of data or something, they just need to be powered off every once in a while. I am so use to it now that when the AEBS can not be found by Airport Utility, I just power-off and plug it back in. In less than two minutes, everything will go back to normal.
    That, ladies and gentlemen, is something you should understand before you buy.

    19 of 22 people found this useful

  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Garbage

    • Written by from Birmingham

    Over-priced paper weight of a router. Wanted to like it but it's slower than a no-name router I used to have that was 1/4 the price of this. On the rare occasion when it does work, it's either so slow you can't use it or it will soon drop out completely. I bought this out of misplaced faith in Apple products but I will never buy another one based on my experience with this one.

    38 of 99 people found this useful

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Seriously needs an update

    • Written by from orlando

    great router.. when it WORKS... Constantly dropping its internet connection. daily, and unreliable. Been to every forum and looked everywhere on google for a solution. no luck. apple needs to fix this. Im better off using a cheap router from walmart.

    39 of 68 people found this useful

  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    The Best of the Best

    • Written by from Brooklyn

    I've had my Apple Airport Extreme for over 2 1/2 years now and I have not experienced 1 dropped signal. My internet speeds are 57 mbps download and 8 mbps upload, and it never compromises my speed at any time of the day. In addition, the signal strength is crazy good. I would highly suggest this router for everyone PC or MAC user. Ignore the price and just get it, trust me it's worth every penny.

    36 of 44 people found this useful

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    One room wireless devise

    • Written by from Hallandale

    Very disapinted from the range, we live in aprtment about 1600 SQ. it works great inthe room it installed, but not working in most of the apartment, what funy is that most of the apartment get good signal from our nieghbors.

    17 of 26 people found this useful

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Not good enough for the price

    • Written by from Fort Worth

    It's a decent unit, I am extremely disappointed in the range of it. My home isn't even that big and my desktop along with my modem are at one end of the house and my apple tv, iphones and laptop struggle to get a signal at the other end of the house. What's funny is that I can pick up my neighbor's antique 2Wire router FROM ACROSS THE STREET!! Yet I can't pick up a signal from my own router, with an open hallway from one end of the house to the other in a 1,500 sq ft home?!?! It's just not worth it. I feel I could have gotten one for less that $100 that would be better. Oh, and our iPhone 5's are no where near as reliable as our 4's and 4S's were. I guess the "edge" that helped Apple stand apart, died with Steve Jobs.

    42 of 67 people found this useful

  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Excellent, best wireless router ever!

    • Written by from san antonio

    I have been through so many routers,and this was one is by far the best one. I can use my iPad outside, on the other side of the house which I couldn't with Lynskey's or the Motorola , even the cable company's rented router was worthless. I would never use any other router for my wireless needs, a great speed improvement with my Internet, not only can I stream Netflix movies, but I can be on the computer watching you tube videos with no problems what so ever.

    28 of 32 people found this useful

  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Great Range!

    • Written by from Valdese

    I chose Aiport Extreme Base stations when looking to save money and bypass a $7000 WiFi installment quote. Originally was going to have 7 access points professionally installed. I chose 3 Airport Extremes after a push from a friend. I am using them in two 10,000 square foot restored hosiery mill buildings. They work wonders!! I can get away with 2 Airport Extremes but chose the 3rd in order to maintain speed and connectivity in my office space. A great money saving solution for me. They were a breeze to set up with my MacBook Pro and all of my PC co-workers seem to have no issues either.

    Do keep in mind when trying to create the same network across multiple airports, you need to name them all the same.

    31 of 43 people found this useful

  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Disappointed

    • Written by from Weaverville

    This is sad that my 9 year old airport extremes have better range and are more reliable than the 5th gen extremes I just bought. The network would die every 12 hours and we would have to reset all the routers to get it going again. Called Apple several times and returned one that would not reset and the new one seems to work ok so far. The network is working now, but the repeating routers have to be with in 30 feet of the main router. Way to much money for an inferior product than the cheap netgear routers they replaced which had better range.

    19 of 35 people found this useful

  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Best of the best

    • Written by from Palmyra

    I originally bought a Linksys N900 for my home wifi needs. That was a total disaster. So I returned the unit and picked up the Airport Extreme from Best Buy. Set up was very easy and only took about 5 min to do. It was so easy thanks to Apple taking all of the thinking out of it. I connected a USB external hard drive to it and I am able to access the drive from both PC and Mac computers. Such a great experience, I will never buy anything that doesn't come from Apple again. Great Product overall!

    11 of 14 people found this useful

  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Impressive

    • Written by from Matthews

    As a long time PC user, I must say I'm impressed. With a couple of iPhones, iPad, MacBook and 2 air play speakers, pretty much everything runs on an Apple infrastructure except my PC, Printer and NetGear router. I started to have connectivity issues with Remote on my iPad and iPhone to my PC's iTunes. Then the Air Play speakers would vanish. A re-boot of the router and all was well, for a day or two. Hours searching the net for solutions provided no tangible result. I decided to try the Airport even though it was $100 more than my current router. After a week, I have had ZERO issues. My WPS devices connected, I used Bonjour for my printer, everything just works, and keeps working.
    The only annoyance I have is that when you make a setting change the router has to reboot. But I guess if that's the worst issue, I'll still be a happy camper.

    10 of 14 people found this useful

  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Superior product

    • Written by from Winter Springs

    I purchased an airport express at my local apple store 4 weeks ago but it was not a good fit for me. Brought the express back to Apple and store rep took it back with no questions asked, so I upgraded to AirPort Extreme on the spot and I am very satisfied, the extreme performs better than I expected.

    13 of 20 people found this useful

  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Well worth the money

    • Written by from Anchorage

    If you have Apple TV's, multiple devices like iPad, iPhone, iPod, iMac, PC's, etc; this AirPort Extreme is a true problem solver. We were having random connection issues with the Cisco Router, but since replacing it with the Airport, after setting it up in seconds with the Airport, haven't had a problem since. Another true Apple plug and play.

    29 of 35 people found this useful

  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Fantastic router!!

    • Written by from Hamilton,Ontario

    Highly recommend this product . Have used D-Link router that just recently died. It was a real hassle to set up when I first bought it.

    Decided to get the Apple Extreme and it was worth every penny.

    Setting it up was sooooo easy.

    11 of 18 people found this useful

  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    LOVE. Finally a wifi that covers my home and all of my devices. EASILY

    • Written by from Homer Glen

    Long story short, 6500 sqft home, thousands wasted on installers, numerous WIFI units and repeaters you name it. Then I discovered the AirPort! Why doesn Apple advertise this more ? because then every idiot would have perfect WIFI that you never have to complain about and then what would everyone talk about ? we would have to discuss how our day was and what we did on the weekend! BORING, so lets keep the fools talking about their useless WIFI coverage and speed (the opposite of what I now have thanks to the AirPort Extreme.
    I placed the base station in my media server rack in basement and an AirPort Express in the HVAC room on the 3rd floor and BOOM! you just plug that mf in and it works. Just like in a dream, when you are flying and then you wake up. But this is TRUE. Apple, will you marry me? Ive also consumed 3x Redbull Silvers which offered me no WIFI coverage once plugged in but made the connecting of the AirPorts even faster than it already could have been.

    Thanks Apple, lets just keep this amazing setup between us.

    26 of 40 people found this useful

  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Amazing!

    • Written by from Moultonboro

    We have been having "issues" with our internet for months now. We thought maybe it was just poor service until we decided to update our router and came across the AirPort Extreme. We are a household with many devices that connect to the internet (laptop, iPads, iPhones, iPods, kindles, tv, playstation, etc etc) I only wish that we had found this a long time ago! It only took about 10 minutes to set it up and have the wi-fi working. I also really like the guest network that you can set up so now when my daughters have friends over we can connect them to the guest network. Since installing this we have not been disconnected once!!! It is truly an amazing product and I would highly recommend this to anyone.

    22 of 32 people found this useful