My Apple AirPort Extreme

Sooo, I normally wouldn’t spend $170 on a wireless router, but I have a number of reasons as to why I decided to purchase this piece of overpriced Apple hardware:

1. I had $120 credit to a store, and I didn’t know what else to buy.
2. I needed a wireless router, and the Linksys router I was interested in was sold out.
3. I own a MacBook Pro, and I think that the whole Apple-addiction is getting to me.

I understand that none of these can atone for my careless money-spending, but I must say that this wireless-n router is pretty damn nice.

Let’s get the obvious points out of the way. It is beautiful simply because it was “Designed by Apple in California”. It’s white, geometric, and minimal in its design. And it isn’t really competitively priced, but what Apple hardware really is (I understand that it’s getting better)?

In my room, there are wires going everywhere, which is part of the reason why I wanted a wireless router. This cleaned up two stray ethernet cords climbing up the side of my desk (one for me and one for my roommate).

Onto the setup. It was really easy, all I had to do was install the drivers/software that came bundled with the router; no different from any other router I’ve used. It recognized my incoming internet instantly, and my MacBook Pro recognized the router equally fast. It was setting up my hard drive where I found problems.

Try as I might, I couldn’t get my computer to pair with the hard drive. Even though the router recognized it, OS X wouldn’t for some reason. It turned out that my hard drive happens to be one of about 10 that no longer works due to some software and firmware restrictions. I hope that gets corrected soon, but I don’t think it will seeing as this router has been out for quite a few months.

All in all, this router works as it should. I have set it up as a wireless print server instead of a hard drive server, and it does what it is supposed to. Is it worth $170? No, but I had store credit and I think it looks nice…