AirPort Extreme Base Station

Reviews for AirPort Extreme Base Station

Customer Reviews and Ratings

4.5 out of 5 stars

Based on 404 reviews

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Solid wireless device

    • Written by from IXONIA

    Although I am a PC user, This device takes the cake in wireless. I don't really use it as a router more of a AP. It would be really nice to have a little more advanced functionality to the device. Not being able to use the guest network when you are bridging brings this product down a star... I think there is room for improvement.

    11 of 14 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Network Router - Firewall

    • Written by from Vancouver

    I've been using the airport extreme as a network router / Firewall in an office environment for over two years. It works flawlessly in every respect but one. If you intend to run FTP service, forget it. Service will be intermittent at best. The last update completely pooched FTP. Though FTP is an old protocol it is still very useful in the business world. If you need to run this service you'll need to set-up a second machine with a unique IP as a gateway server (ie no firewall / Airport Extreme)

    59 of 59 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Great Router

    • Written by from Lancaster

    I had a Dlink dual band gaming router for 6 years and just stopped performing. I looked into other routers until reading reviews on the Airport Extreme. When I purchased the router and tried setting it up it was not working like i was told by Apple rep. I called Applecare and the rep walked me through a couple of different things to get it working. In the end the unit had to be reset and presto; it worked. I have had it running for a few days now and no loss of wireless connections on any of my devices. I am in a 2900SQFT 2 story home and have the router up stairs. I am running 4 iPhones, 2 iMacs, 2 Xboxes, wireless printer, Majic Jack phone, and Direct TV with no lag or loss of connection now. I am very impressed with the performance of this router. I would have given it 5 stars if the setup would have been easier. Great job on this product! I hope it lasts me as long if not longer than the Dlink router I had.

    47 of 47 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Very fast, cool design, fair price!

    • Written by from Bornheim

    It's really fast and you really don't notice any other devices using the station in the connectivity, the option to open a guest network is simply great. The design is very "Apple-Like" and the price is fair. But I only gave 4 stars, because there is no modem in it, and I don't understand it. Where's the probleme to build a modem into the station? Maybe it'd push up the price a little bit, but I'd pay it. Now you have to buy a modem (which is not from Apple) and you need more space. That doesn't look very good and for me it's unusual.

    35 of 47 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Need more inputs!!! NotExtreme enough!

    • Written by from Laguna Beach

    The needs more inputs.... this is not Extreme enough.

    These days there are multiple computers, game machines, etc.

    Therefore I have to use a switch that greatly degrades the quality.

    21 of 29 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Airport Utility limited?

    • Written by from Yarmouth

    In the current version of the Airport you cannot limit the transmitter power. I'm not sure if this feature is removed from a hardware perspective; or just omitted by the newer (dumbed down?) software configuration utility (6.1).

    In some of my applications, limiting the power is desired to reduce interference from multiple units. However, I don't seem to be able to do this anymore.

    (There appears to be an older version of Airport Utility which can be made to run on Mountain Lion, but it appears to be a bit of work and I am unclear if this would be updated for the newer Airport Extreme base stations)

    22 of 29 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Very good, but had problems with install.

    • Written by from Macungie

    I bought the AirPort Extreme because it has great reviews and was sold as easy to setup and install. I had my share of problems trying to get the thing running and finally came up with a screen that had me restart my modem which took care of the problem, but it took me over an hour to get to the point where I could test it out. I have an old laptop PC that has a built in "g" wireless set up and it works flawlessly with the AirPort Extreme. I set up my wife's older Ipod Touch and it also works great anywhere in the house. The only reason I didn't give it five stars was due to the lengthy intall time. It was worth the price and I recommend buying it if you want to have a wireless network in the house.

    28 of 33 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    great router, not so great setup process

    • Written by from philadelphia

    The router works great and has extended the range of my wireless network, but wasn't as easy to set up as I imagined. It took me a couple resets to get it up and running, but I was successful, thankfully after reading some helpful posts online.

    28 of 28 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Almost perfect - what about Time Machine Support

    • Written by from Tabernacle

    the AE installed quickly and has functioned without problem for two weeks. However I attempted to activate the Time Machine function using the shared AE USB attached drive and I found out, the hard way, that Apple does not support using the AE USB drive with Time Machine. This is not a major problem since my main purpose for purchasing the AE was for routing and dependability, this I did achieve. However I would suggest that Apple alert their customers of this limitation and save us a lot of time. A simple message issued when you attempt the backup would help. Come on Apple, just a few lines of code.

    32 of 35 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Everything works

    • Written by from HOUSTON

    Replaced a 5 yr old Linksys N router with this one. I have been migrating away from M$ products and between my wife and I we have 2 iPhones, iPad2, 1 MBP, 2 Apple TV and 2 airport express. Within a few minutes I was up and running and everything connected easily. My only gripes are the 5 GHz doesn't make it to the 3rd floor of the house (router is on the 1st floor) with any regularity. Sometimes devices find it, sometimes they don't. Airport Express doesn't seem to really work as a repeater since my second floor signal is strong but 3 floor drops off quickly. I have an AE on the second and 3rd floors.

    34 of 37 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Older PowerBook won't connect

    • Written by from MAGGIE VALLEY

    My airport extreme works great with our three IMAXs and two iPads, but we also have an older titanium PowerBook that has no problem getting online at any WiFi cafe or hotel, BUT will not connect connect with our AirPort network. What gives?

    18 of 25 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Easy Setup!

    • Written by from Glen Allen

    My Linksys "G" router was over 7 years old and with so many wireless devices in our home, it was time for an upgrade to a "N" router. I researched for weeks and decided on the AirPort Extreme over the Linksys. Even though it only has 3 Ethernet ports, I am only using 1 due to the additional wireless speed.

    The setup using my Mac Mini was almost effortless and only took about 5 minutes. With my previous LInksys "G" router, my wireless printer wasn't available on the home network, unless I hard wired it to the router. Now it works like it was designed to work for all of my devices, including iPhones, iPad, Mac Mini, Windows Vista and Windows XP.

    The only issue that I experienced, that wasn't related to the AirPort Extreme, was that one of our Compaq Windows Vista laptops couldn't connect to the Internet. The message that kept displaying was "Local Only". The issue was related to the wireless card driver. HP released the driver update on their website, but Microsoft hadn't, so everytime I tried to look for the latest drivers, Microsoft said that I had the latest ones. After I updated the wireless card drivers with the latest version, everthing has been working fine.

    42 of 43 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Pretty Good

    • Written by from Westport

    It's a wireless router, what can you say? If it works, and it's seemless giving you no problems, then to me that's 5 stars. Here's why I give it 4 stars: No Web Interface. After working for years with other brand routers, I was shocked this had no interface. Lucky I actually have a Mac with the configuration utility installed, and the helpful rep at the Apple store pointed it out to me before I left the store. Why is that a big deal? I have a mixed environment, mostly Virtual Windows PCs or Virual Linux that I tunnel in and access remotely. My Mac is just the iTunes / iPhone / iPad environment, and isn't up all the time. : No QoS? No sure, maybe this product has an internal network shaping priority packets assigner, but it's not obvious, it looks like all the traffic has the same priority. Fortunately for me, my VoIP is directly on the Cablemodem, so I can't even say if a lack of QoS has an effect. : Expensive, at $179.99, the price is about $80 more than I would expect. But for that money has a really cool feature - I have a large house, and I'm able to configure a second base station to seemlessly provide more coverage. Throughput is great since I have them connected to eachother with Gigabit cables. The "old cheap way" was to use two separate wireless SSIDs, now with this Apple Extreme, the second unit seemlessly extends coverage without looking like you have two networks. : I wish the status was a little more helpful, but then again one glowing green light or blinking amber is a lot better than an array of flashing LEDs 24/7. : Reserving IP Addresses - here's where Apple's simplicity doesn't work. I had to actually use pen & paper to write down the Mac addresses before re-typing them in to reserve. Hello, the Airport, it's 2012. D-Link allows you already know the mac addresses of devices connected to it, the interface ought to have a right click, reserve it's IP, boom it's done, but know, I had to write down the hex addresses to re-type them in.

    36 of 40 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Absolutely REQUIRES a powered USB hub to get an external HDD to work.

    • Written by from Monument

    I bought this last week (January 2012), so its the latest model. If you plan to use a USB hard drive, you must purchase a powered USB hub to go along with it. The four port hub I purchased was $30 from Staples. Reading the support forums, the USB port is underpowered for hard drives, resulting in the drive not working at all, or being flaky.

    Other than this issue, it is a very solid and fast router which I would still recommend to anyone who has a house full of wireless devices to connect to the Internet. Would receive 5 stars if the powered USB hub were not a requirement for USB hard drives.

    29 of 30 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    AirPort Extreme

    • Written by from HOLLYWOOD

    I happen to use Windows and Mac products. As such I never considered Apple for a wireless base station. However, after a string of sub standard offerings from Linksys and D-Link left me with frequent drops and reboots, I thought I would give the Extreme a go. Well once I installed it I never looked back. I have 4 people in my household who all have multiple gadgets. While I do notice when someone is gaming, drops are a thing of the past. I only wish I had tried this earlier. I would have saved myself a great deal of frustration.

    43 of 45 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Great router

    • Written by from Roswell

    Works well, and easy to setup. I wish it had QoS, and maybe another port to connect to, but otherwise it's a great stable, router!

    27 of 29 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    USB 3.0 support needed!

    • Written by from Tallinn

    I love the Airport Extreme! Except, it's missing one key thing: Support for USB 3.0 and also having more than just one usb port on the back. Three usb ports would be great. Otherwise, its the best router I have ever used. Got to admit, it puts Linksys and Trendnet to shame.

    23 of 24 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Wish it had airplay audio out

    • Written by from Jacksonville

    Great wifi router. Connections are very fast, stable and offer good range. I have had mine for over a year and I have only had to reboot it twice in that entire time after power interruptions.

    For the features it offers I would give it full marks however I do think not including an audio out port to enable airplay streaming was a mistake on Apples part. I feel like despite owning the Airport Extreme and 2 Airport Express devices, I still need one more Airport Express to complete my set up.

    28 of 31 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Fast and easy

    • Written by from Tomball

    Picked this up at Best Buy today. It took longer to get the old equipment out and this one hooked up than it did to configure. FAST, and easy to set up. What else do you need? Consider the time capsule if you want network storage. Same performance with added benefits of 2tb of storage. 4* because its just a router..not that exciting.

    34 of 40 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Doesn't Work Well With LION Server

    • Written by from Sheridan

    The quality and effectiveness of this router are excellent. However, for the price I was expecting more flexibility in configuration.

    I wanted to use it to set up a wireless guest network alongside my existing wired LION SERVER network. Unfortunately the Airport requires you to have DHCP running if you want to set up a guest network with DHCP, which then would require you to turn off DHCP on your server, since the airport wants to provide DHCP service to both networks.

    Additionally, you can't set up a guest network when the router is in bridged mode.

    I effectively wasted $180 on an otherwise excellent router, that is useless to me at this point. I sincerely hope they make the guest network functionality independent of other network functionality in the future. If it wouldn't have been for these issues, it would certainly deserve a solid 5 stars.

    24 of 33 people found this useful

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