I’m getting quite a headache trying to figure out what the best choice is. I know I can always buy an airport extreme, but can anyone recommend another wireless router that doesn’t cost as much? Thanks.
I have bought a couple of cheap ones here and they have all worked well once set up. However, setting them up can be a long process of trial and error if your Chinese isn’t very good (like mine). There were no language options on either wireless router I bought.
When moving apartments I thought about taking the wireless with me but I ended up buying an Airport Express instead and love it. It was super quick and easy to set up (in English) and hasn’t failed me yet. I also love Airtunes and use it whenever I’m at home. It’s more expensive, but I don’t think I’ll go back. One issue I have with it is that I can’t get it working simultaneously with my gf’s XP laptop and Nintendo DS - I couldn’t find compatible wireless encryption. It would work fine for one or the other, but not both. Didn’t really want to disable wifi security.
I bought the Airport Extreme (a little aghast at the NT$6,000 price tag) and I’m very happy with it. Not only is it a doddle to set up (like the Express stevegan has), but it also allows you to plug in your external hard-disk and printer, plus it plays nicely with Windows computers.
My rig at home has 1.5Tb worth of drives and two printers all working seamlessly, wirelessly, through the Extreme - I can print documents or listen to music (from the external drive) from anywhere in the flat - on my MacBook, through my Linux box in the office or on Mrs Taffy’s XP laptop. Time Machine also works wirelessly for complete back-ups from the MB. Yep, it’s pricey, but the feature-set is difficult to find in any other option, and the reduction in hassle from other wireless options I had tried was worth the ticket price alone.
If you don’t need to hook up your external drive and printer to your router, then the Express is a good option.
Spend more, get a Time Machine. Fantastic device.
Yeah? I’m not so sure. Seems overpriced when you can plug any off-the-shelf external hard-drive into the Extreme and get the same effect (OK, not quite the same, as you’re limited by the speed of the USB2.0 connection - but for most applications you wouldn’t notice the difference).
Why go for the Time Machine over the Extreme? (Not a rhetorical question, I’d actually like to know.)
I tried a number of generic routers, wireless and otherwise, and got nothing but grief.
Lost some rather important photos and documents by accident while deleting files to make more room.
Got fed up, but the Time Machine. Set up was dead easy. Everything’s always backed up. No worries. Turn it on and forget about it. I like that. Worth the extra bucks.
Understood, but the Airport Extreme is not a generic router. It’s an Apple product, the predecessor to the Time Machine, and as far as I can tell the only difference between the two is the internal HD. You can get the same effect by plugging any random external HD into the Extreme. More serviceable, more flexible, more cheaperer.
You guys make it hard to save a buck. I guess I’ll stick with apple. Cheers for the advice!
We just got a switch and a netgear access point for the office and its plug and play. Nothing to set up (as long as you dont need to set up a password). And all the PC and Apple notebooks just get online fine. If thats all you are doing? The switch is bout 25 bucks and the netgear accesspoint was 65 plus tax at Best Buy.
You can just turn it off when you dont want to use wireless to get online. Or were you talking about other things besides just getting online wirelessly?
I’m voting for the Extreme also. I have it and it’s great. Great for protecting your signal, as I found out when a neighbor of mine kept telling me how he was trying to access the web from my place, but didn’t know it was my signal. His ranting about being blocked was quite funny.