![]() We’re going to compare an AirPort Extreme 802.11n (5 th Generation) Base Station (“AEBS-n”), which was released by Apple on Jwith the latest 802.11ac (6 th Generation) Base Station (“AEBS-ac”), which was released by Apple on June 10, 2013. For these tests, we thought it was important to see what impact an upgrade to the Airport Extreme Base Station had on both old equipment and new. That’s why we will often provide test results using Apple products that are one or two (or maybe more) generations old. Not everyone has the newest and fastest Apple hardware and at Apple Tech Talk, we think it’s important to give you information that resembles what you might expect as an average user. Today we are going to share the results of our tests to see if you should consider upgrading your Wi-Fi router, even if it is working fine. If you missed it, you can read the article here. Although, if your ISP does not lock your MAC address, there is no issue at all.Last week we started our review of the Airport Extreme Base Station (“AEBS)” with a brief history of Wi-Fi. So, although it is not an issue, it is a serious inconvenience. You can still use the Airport Extreme, though, but you have to contact your ISP to update their MAC addresses, and that can take an hour or two. In that case, it can be a headache to shift on to the Airport extreme if you were using a different router or a modem before. Many ISPs lock the internet connection to a particular router or a modem. ![]() One more nuisance is the fact that there is no option to change the MAC address. Although there is a VPN pass through available, there is no VPN server that you can use. Also, you can configure the radio and password protect them as well. You can manually select channels or let the router decide for you. Although once set up, it has no problems to connect with any operating system whatsoever. It is quite an odd choice since you have to use a Mac or an iOS device to set this thing up in the first place. Rather than using the traditional web page based approach, Apples employs a different method. One of the biggest criticisms that Airport Extreme draws it the fact that it uses a Mac or iOS-specific set up the process. The unique architecture makes the Airport extreme one of the most efficient routers out there. Rather than relying on a single antenna to send and receive, the Airport Extreme uses six! Three of the six antennae are dedicated to sending and the other three to receive signals. The second and most thing that makes it such a great product is the fact the antennae architecture. There is a single white power cable matching the router itself. Rather than using the Broadcom reference design and putting it in a new case, Apple has managed to build the router from ground up.įirst and foremost, the power supply is built right in! So, no ugly power bricks are clinging to your wall sockets. Although it packs in a lot of other goodies that sets the Airport Extreme apart from the competition. The Airport Extreme is essentially a dual band 11 ac router powered by a Broadcom chipset. Well, inside that sexy looking cube, or tower or whatever you may prefer to call it, it is a rather conventional router. Let’s take a look a some of the features of the router itself. It enables the user to take a system-wide backup of all the Apple machines connected to the network right into the router. The only difference between the two is the fact that the Time Capsule one has an additional 3.5-inch hard disk. The standard one, which we will be talking about here and a Time capsule version. There are two models of Airport Extreme available from Apple. Apple released the latest model back in June 2013 with wireless 11ac bands, a first for the company. After all, they were the ones who pioneered the technology and brought it to the personal computing. When it comes to wifi, Apple knows a thing or two. The company has spent a lot of research dollars in the development of wifi technology over the years. Now in its sixth generation, the Airport Extreme has come a long way from its goofy UFO-looking days. In this review, we are going to take a closer look at this beautiful and powerful router. The unique design compels you to display it rather than hide it like your old, ugly router! It is fast and super easy to set up, which makes it a perfect, well almost perfect as we will see shortly. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Apple’s version of a wireless router does not disappoint at all. ![]() Let me begin by stating the obvious, when it comes to design no one comes even close to Apple.
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