Apple Airport Express MB321LL/A [NEWEST VERSION] by Apple Computer
![Apple Airport Express MB321LL/A [NEWEST VERSION]](/images/Apple-Airport-Express-MB321LL-A-NEWEST-VERSION-B0015YJOK2-L.jpg)
|
List Price: Our Price: $98.87 You Save: $1.12 (1%) Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 2 months Buy Used: from $69.99 (click here) Category: CE See more digital camera details and other models |
|---|
Digital camera reviews of Apple Airport Express MB321LL/A [NEWEST VERSION]
Digital camera Review: Almost perfect ... road warrior best friend
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm consultant spending most of my time staying at different hotels where wireless internet connection is often pretty bad or even not available.
Having said that this product seemed to be perfect match since there is no external power supply and can work in bridge mode to share hotel's wired connection.
This is awesome device, very small and perfect for road warriors. I didn't test how far away you can move from this device as I don't care otherwise I would be buying stronger device.
It's been working flawlessly with my Windows laptop, no disconnects whatsoever.
Installation was smooth and don't know what other guys are complaining and creating all those long steps for configuration.
All I can tell is to initially get configure it get your ethernet cable and connect Airport router directly into you computer then run Airport utility wizard where you choose to create wireless network, choose what kind of wirelless network you want, pretty much that's it. Then unplug cable from computer and stick it into either other router/modem or your hotel wired internet connection then turn on wireless on your computer.
It would be a perfection if it had capability to share portable hard drive over built in USB!
I still give it 5 stars because of small size, no external power brick (I hate cables and adapters) and n-band WiFi.
Power plug is removable so you can hook up longer cable or EU plug for those oversee's flights ;)
Digital camera Review: Almost sent it back
Summary: 5 Stars
I had problems having the airport utility finding the Airport express. Verizon's help page told me to set the modem to bridge mode. That didn't work either. Had to call Verizon a second time to get the modem reset and get me connected again to the internet .
After that and resetting the Airport Express back to factory default settings I connected the DSL cable from the modem to AE , started the utility and walked right though the set up.
Important to note that you want to set Airport Express in "Bridge Mode" when asked and don't mess with the Verizon 6100 modem . That lets the modem assign IP addresses etc
If you have problems call Verizon and have them walk you through doing a hard reset o the modem.. (keep them on the phone when you do)
I was about ready to give up and return the Airport Express but once the modem was reset it worked perfectly. I had my new wireless network up and running in about 10 minutes.
PS I also set up Apple TV following setting up my Airport Network .. very easy set up.
Digital camera Review: Amazing features in a tiny package at a low price, what more can you ask for?
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased a few of these units primarily to create a wireless multi-room audio system throughout my home. One of the best and overlooked features of these devices, is the digital/analog audio output. If you use iTunes to organize your music, you can stream songs from your library directly to the audio outputs on the router! Place these near stereo systems, a set of PC speakers, what-have-you, and you've got a multi-room audio system. If you have an iPod/Pad/Phone or Android, apps are available (for free!) that let you remotely control the entire system - basically your music collection at your fingertips in every room of your house. Oh, and it's a great wireless base-station too ;-)
Set-up:
I don't think I've ever set up a router as simply and easily as this. Apple has done a darn good job of simplifying setting up or extending wireless networks. Their software has some nice wizards that guide you through the whole config process. My only complaint was that you really had to look around to find the advanced settings/configuration options. The Airport has a lot of configurable options, but they are well-hidden behind the simple wizard interface. That's not necessarily a bad thing, of course.
Further items of interest:
The audio jack can double as an optical SPDIF audio output
There's non-Apple software (Airfoil) available that will also allow you to stream non-iTunes audio content (Pandora? WinMedia Player, whatever) to the Airport.
Digital camera Review: Amazing magical device! Great for wireless audio!
Summary: 5 Stars
So for the past few hours, I was researching the internet looking for a way to wirelessly send audio from my MacBook Pro to my home stereo receiver. I looked into Bluetooth dongles and was close to going that route, until I happened upon a Mac forum that discussed using the Airport Express for just this purpose.
As it so happens, my dad gave me a spare Airport Express a few months back, but I hadn't used it for anything yet. I already have a WiFi DSL router in my house. But after seeing that the Airport Express has a stereo out jack, that it piggybacks onto my current WiFi network without requiring me to start from scratch, and that iTunes is already AirTunes enabled, I plugged it in and got started.
Setup took one minute, if that. Very easy through Airport Utility. Just named the Airport, put in a password, and had it connect wirelessly to my current network. Used a mini-to-RCA cable to connect it to my stereo, then selected the Airport network in iTunes and POW! I have wireless audio! The sound quality is fantastic.
If only I'd known about this months ago. This Airport Express is a killer deal and really frees you up from having too many wires around. Definite must-have for any Mac owner (or PC owner) who loves music.
Digital camera Review: Amazing!
Summary: 5 Stars
Music used to be a huge part of my life; I almost always had something playing on the stereo. Then we moved to a larger house, and it seemed like the music stopped. Our nicest stereo was in the living room. Our CD collection was upstairs, though some of it was on the computer in the office. And we spent most of our time in other parts of the house. It's long been a dream of mine to play the same music throughout the house; with the Airport Express, this dream became a reality, and I'm listening to music all of the time again.
I bought one to give it a try; this let me stream music from my Vista PC to the living room stereo on the same floor (while still playing via the PC speakers). I was hooked, and immediately copied the rest of our CDs to the computer.
After a few weeks, I bought another AirPort Express to stream the music to a pair of powered speakers upstairs (Creative Labs GigaWorks T40 Premium 2.0 Multimedia Speaker System with BasXPort Technology). All three music sources (the computer and the two Airport Express-connected speaker systems) are always in sync and drop outs have been very rare. It's really quite amazing; you can walk throughout the house and hear the same music everywhere. Of course you want to be able to control the music from where you are in the house, so I bought an Apple iPod touch 8 GB (2nd Generation) to use as a remote (the iPhone works as well). The whole setup is just so cool!
I recently bought a third Airport Express. I don't stream music through this one; I use it as a wireless bridge to allow an old iMac without a wireless card to access my network. This one performs flawlessly; you set it up and forget it. I could also stream music through this one if I had another pair of speakers to connect to it.
Although I think this is an amazing product, I almost docked it one star because the setup and interoperability with non-Apple hardware isn't as seamless as it should be.
I connected my first two Airport Expresses to a non-Apple Wireless G access point (a 2WIRE DSL router). For security reasons, I do not broadcast the SSID on my wireless network. I could not get the AirPort Expresses to join my network with the SSID broadcast off (even though I typed in the network name); I had to broadcast the SSID, join them to the network, then stop broadcasting the SSID. That wasn't that big of deal, but it took me at least 30 minutes to figure it out and it's not how it should work. These units also had a tendency to drop out of the AirPort utility software when they connected via this access point.
When I got the third one, I bought an Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station (Gigabit) MB053LL/A to use as my main access point (these can't act as a bridge on a non-Apple wireless network). I set this up as Wireless-N only, I still use the old access point for B/G.
The third AirPort Express also had setup problems- the AirPort Utility software couldn't communicate with it until I did a factory reset. After the factory reset, it was easy as pie, though. I had no problems joining the AirPort Expresses to the Apple base station, even with the SSID broadcast turned off. So, in my experience, these do work with non-Apple access points, but they work much better with an Apple base station. On the plus side, the AirPort Utility works well under Windows; I don't think you need a Mac to get the most out of this.
Those minor hassles aside, this is the most impressive computing/home entertainment product that I've seen in a long time- it's somewhat expensive, but you get a lot of features for your money. Highly Recommended!