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Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Model number: MB053LL/A | SKU: 8508947

Harness the power of Wireless-N technology for fast, secure wireless connectivity with this wireless base station that functions as a wireless access point, wireless print server or wireless range extender.

Average Customer Rating:

4.6 out of 5

38 of 39 (97%) customers would recommend this product to a friend.

Customer Reviews for Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Review 1 for Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Customer Rating

4.0 5

Solid Multi-Function Wireless Router 12/29/2008
By Anonymous Reviewer from Washington DC

Value for Price

4.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Performance

5.0 5

Ease of Installation

4.0 5

What's great about it: Range, Signal, External Drive & Print Sharing
What's not so great: Windows Set Up, Only One USB Port, Price

"I bought this product for two reasons: 1) ease of installation 2) Apple product reputation. I am running Vista Ultimate 64 bit, and though the software supports PC, it is definitely not Windows native. The wizards included did not properly set up my wireless network. It only really took about a half hour, but it was more tinkering around by myself with the software (and several reboots of my cable modem) that got it working more than anything. That said, once working, there is really no comparison to any other router in its class. It is fast, secure, and has incredible range. Using other 802.11n products on the wireless network, the speeds are comparable to a wired connection. Also, unlike other routers in this class, it simply DOES NOT DROP CONNECTIONS.

The price is probably a bit more than it should be, but that is the case with all Apple products. Apple has more or less become the luxury line of computing and multimedia products. You pay more, but you also get a high quality product in exchange for your hard earned money.

Other than the PC set up and high price, there are a couple of other minor issues. For one, there is only one USB port on the back of the router. It is heralded for its ability to act as a print server and mini file server (hosting an external drive on your network) but there is only one USB port, so it is really only one or the other (a USB hub might solve this issue). As to the external drive, you cannot use NTFS. You will have to reformat into a Mac format or FAT32, in order for it to be usable on your wireless network. Lastly, they do not include any LAN connecting cables (RJ45). Unlike almost every other manufacturer, Apple does not provide a free cable to connect your desktop to the router. Not an issue if you are only going to have a wireless connection, but think that most people do have at least one wired computer in their network.

In all, a very solid product from Apple, that like all other Apple products, costs more than it probably should, and is not entirely native to the PC environment. A few headaches at first, but in the end, certainly worth the effort (and maybe even the money)."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes
Is this product used primarily for business?: No

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Review 2 for Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Best Wireless Router 12/07/2008
By gingerbread from Greenbrier, AR

Value for Price

5.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Performance

5.0 5

Ease of Installation

4.0 5

What's great about it: It works consistantly without problems
What's not so great: Internet set up was a pain due to internet company not being familiar with the airport; not really Apple's fault.

"I highly recommend this router; I will be purchasing another for my parent's house. After dealing with Linksys, I will only purchase airports; the price difference is justified by the airport’s performance.

I only realized how great this one is after dealing with Linksys wireless router for my parent's house. The Linksys constantly messes up and has connection problems; compared to the airport the Linksys is a piece of junk.

I have had this airport for almost a year, it lost connection only once, and that was after an internet and power outage. I took for granted its consistent performance until dealing with Linksys for 2 months. I will not purchase Linksys again and will purchase the airport for their house.

The airport performs excellently with my apple products, dell products, and HP products. It is expensive at twice the price of Linksys, but the difference in frustration makes the airport worth its weight in gold!

I highly recommend the airport because it consistently works without problems or frustration; I open my laptop and can print or get on the internet without even having to think about the airport working because it always is.

In addition, in regards to the difficulty in setting up my internet, they left a faulty set-up disc and the CSRs were not familiar with the apple, so it took a manager to get it set up. This was the fault of my internet company not a defect in the product; I used 4 stars just because people may not be familiar with it and that may cause some problems. Once set up; it performs consistently."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes
Is this product used primarily for business?: No

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Review 3 for Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Awesome Router to have 11/24/2008
By MoNeYMaN1978 from Santa Mariam CA

Value for Price

3.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Performance

5.0 5

Ease of Installation

5.0 5

What's great about it: Was simple to setup
What's not so great: External NTSC formatted HardDrive

"Everything was great but the cost was a bit too much. Although the router is the best router i have ever owned. its a great router that works flawlessly. Every once in a while i lose signal but its due to intereference from cordless phones that are not DECT compatible. The only issue i saw was with my external hard drive i had attached to the router showed amber lights. I came to realize that i needed the hard drive in either HFS+ or FAT32 so that the router would not give an amber error light after formatting the hard drive with HPS+ the router glowed green and all was well in the world."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes
Is this product used primarily for business?: No

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Review 4 for Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Top 500 Contributor

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Great Range, Speed and Features 11/12/2008
By macguru

"The USB port on this for a Wireless Drive or printer is phenomenal. It has great wireless range and speed too. A great buy."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 5 for Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Fantastic buy for PC or MAC 10/11/2008
By Ktreece from Fort Smith, Ar

Value for Price

5.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Performance

5.0 5

Ease of Installation

5.0 5

What's great about it: Nice design, Range Amazing, No more of that resetting the router weekly!
What's not so great: None

"I have had this router for about 4 months now. It has served me well. The range is amazing. I don't deal with resetting my router weekley anymore like my previous router. Although, I haven't tested the USB port feature on the router but I hear it isn't compatible with all printers."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 6 for Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Customer Rating

3.0 5

Too much for not enough 09/28/2008
By Shaugh69 from Saugerties, NY

Value for Price

3.0 5

Ease of Use

4.0 5

Performance

3.0 5

Ease of Installation

4.0 5

What's great about it: Very good N router
What's not so great: USB port doesn't work for all in one printer

"I bought this specifically to hook up my old USB Epson RX600 all in one printer to a network as we were adding a laptop. The printer works very good and I didn't want to throw it away just yet and figured a few extra bucks for a router would make the deal fine.

There is a list of printers that will work off the USB port but most are just print only mode. Apple doesn't exactly make this known up front.

Basically Epsons require a 2 way USB port to communicate ink levels and such and it doesn't work with the apple airport software. Most all in one's do not work with the airport so it's not just an Epson problem.

In the end I bought a new Epson Artisan 800 with wifi / ethernet and the network works the way I want to now but I could have been about $80 ahead by just buying a regular N mode router without the useless USB port."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: No

0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Review 7 for Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Top 1000 Contributor

Customer Rating

5.0 5

True to Apple Quality 09/25/2008
By bcopeland from Lafayette, LA

Value for Price

5.0 5

Ease of Use

5.0 5

Performance

5.0 5

Ease of Installation

5.0 5

What's great about it: Excellent coverage.. Super fast!!!
What's not so great: None

"I have come to learn that anything with the Apple logo on it is good quality stuff.. You won't be disappointed... Ability to share a USB HDD is a Major Bonus...."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 8 for Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Customer Rating

5.0 5

You will honestly never have to buy another router 07/24/2008
By megcpedsrn from Oxford Valley, PA

What's great about it: easy set up, works with macs and pc's, small, great speed
What's not so great: a little on the expensive side, but its worth every penny

"I have had 3 routers in the past two years, not including this one, and total have spent about 300 dollars because they would stop working or wouldn't even start up in the first place, this router is one of the best things i have ever bought in my life. Its fast and has a very far range, i can be outside lounging by the pool and its just as fast as if i was right next to it. With its gigabit ethernet, which basically is the fastest way to be connected to the internet, for example, lets say you have a desktop, mac or pc, plugged into the ethernet ports in the back, u will absolutely never get kicked off the internet as you could with any other router, and it is extremely fast. Also there is a usb port in the back of it, which you can plug in a printer or hard drive that you can be connected to wirelessly, my son actually did something that has been a great help, he but a 4-port usb hub into the one port on the back, so we have a printer, a special photo printer, and two hard drives all plugged into the router. In my personal opinion, this is the way to go if you have a mac, because instead of buying a time capsule, which is 400-500 dollars with the built in hard drive, you can get this, and plug in the hub like i have, and then you can also plug in 2 or more hard drives, one designated for time capsule, and the other(s) just for sharing with other computers in your house. This is definitely the way to go because for around 100 dollars, you get what netgear and dell-link(router manufacturers) want you to think are great routers, which you might have to replace , if your lucky, in a few years, buy this, and you wont have to, buy this router, YOU WILL NOT BE DISSAPOINTED!"

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 9 for Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Customer Rating

5.0 5

awesome 07/22/2008
By Viva

What's great about it: shared printer, easy set up, nice design
What's not so great: pricey

"it is a lil bit overpriced compared to other routers...but it works well. easy to set up, works with pc/mac, and stylish to go with ur mac"

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 10 for Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Very Useful and Fast 06/25/2008
By amixworld from Connecticut

What's great about it: Wirelessly share a printer and very fast wireless.
What's not so great: none

"this product is very easy to set up on a mac or pc. AirPort utility comes with it and it is very straight forward. There is one very simple status light that lets you know when something is wrong with your network. you can edit all your settings right from the AirPort utility program instead of having to log into a website."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 11 for Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Great Device and great price for what you get 05/28/2008
By jseg2005

What's great about it: Excellent Product
What's not so great: None

"I have an extended range network with a 802.11n express and extreme and it works great. I don't have any macs on the network but that is my next purchase. 24 inch iMac here I come. No problems whatsoever on a Vista Laptop, PS3, 360, wii, sat box, and windows XP PC. The only thing that does not work properly is my printer but I've narrowed that down to a networked driver issue with vista. I have a 160 GB external drive plugged in and it works beautifully."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 12 for Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Customer Rating

5.0 5

I'm Not A Geek 05/11/2008
By StDemon from Milpitas, CA

What's great about it: Super Easy to install
What's not so great: None, I don't even have a mac.

"First just let me say I'm not a geek and I don't have a Mac. I don't know jack about computers and I set this thing up with no problems. All I did was put the install disc in and followed the directions on the screen. Read other reviews, but didn't exp. any of the problems others talk about, like droped signal. Works great, even went back to best buy to get the airport express to extend network and got everything hooked up. (ie printer, Xbox, PS3, and my home audio system) Don't know what else to say, it just works and works well."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 13 for Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Customer Rating

5.0 5

That was Easy 05/01/2008
By swiish22

What's great about it: Easy set up. Fast wireless connection. Built in print server.
What's not so great: Expensive if you are only using it as a router

"After reading some reviews, I thought set up would be difficult. Not at all. Very simple and very quick. Before the Airport Extreme I was using a Netgear WG614. I finally got tired of unpluging after every hour of use. I bought this router not sure if my old router was bad or my connection speed is low. Don't hesitate, the Airport extreme is the real deal."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 14 for Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Best of the Best Wireless Router 05/01/2008
By mynameistodd from Charleston, SC

What's great about it: Signal Strength, Wireless Encryption, Installation
What's not so great: No DIRECT cable hookup

"Simply outstanding wireless router. Installation was a snap even when turning an otherwise ordinary USB printer into a network printer for 3 computers. Awesome! My only complaint is that I must use my old cable modem - from there, an ethernet line runs to my Apple Airport. Really, that's small potatoes, but if I have to pick something as a con, THAT IS IT."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 15 for Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Customer Rating

4.0 5

Pretty Darn Good... 04/27/2008
By Anonymous Reviewer from Ohio

What's great about it: Great Range, Easy With Mac, Nice Utility
What's not so great: Drops Sometimes, Not Very Adapted For Windows

"This little white box has done it all for me. I needed a new router that would give me Wifi all over the house and this did it. The only part that gave me some problems was setting it up with my Dell Desktop. Once I talked with Apple for a few hours, it was up and running. The Mac laptop acceses perfectly except for some occasional drops in signal.. If you are looking into buying this router, do it.
I looked on Bestbuy forever... trying to get a review that would really help me out. After awhile, I just sprung for it. You will never regret it.. especially if you have an Apple product!!!!"

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Review 16 for Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Awesome WiFi Range 04/22/2008
By MovinIt from Fort Wayne, IN

What's great about it: Ease of Install, strong signal, firewall
What's not so great: Over kill for small spaces, overlaps to neighbor

"Have installed and used Airport Extreme Wireless-N for three months. It provides a really strong signal for fast downloads and uploads around house and deck. Can work on deck in sunny weather! Have installed FiOS recently and in near range is no better than router that comes with system. As move further away really shows its muscles. Ease of installation and set-up was a breeze. Recommend for anyone who uses laptop around house or wants to network. Should make certain that firewall is up!"

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Review 17 for Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Finally!!! 04/10/2008
By mdmania from Boise, ID

What's great about it: Consistent connection and simple set up. USB port option for printers and hard drive sharing.
What's not so great: Constant dropout signal at the beginning but took some experimentation now is working great

"First of, I just like to say Best Buy's return policy has been great and customer service. Why? Because this Apple router is my third try in search of perfect router. And FINALLY! I found it. But the reason for this search had gone this far was because I started from cheap router. When my Linksys router had it's last breath, I took a chance on Netgear WGR614 and I thought I could save some money. Well, that didn't work obviously and gone through constant reset issue instead, exchanged. Then, tried going back with Linksys WRT160N, just below a 100 dollar price and I thought maybe this might work. It worked for a while but then it was inconsistent and I just never knew if this thing is going to work or not. Well, it didn't so this one had to go as well. Exchanged!
At first I was very reluctant on this Apple airport extreme because of it's price range. Don't get me wrong I'm a big Apple fan but for a router that cost almost 200.00 dollars! Forget it! But my choices and patience at this point is kind of running out and tired of all run around. So I thought, taking a chance on this router would be definitely a worth a try.
To be honest, after setting the Apple airport I was very disappointed. Within a minute after set up, BAM! dropout. At this point, I said "Not again!" So to make story a little bit shorter, when I came home from work I thought I try resetting the router to factory setting and start all over again. Set up my router to WEP2 only not WEP/WEP2 which causes the router to slow down when running N mixed with B or G worked a lot better. And the reason I said that is because some user claimed that it does slow it down. And I completely agree with it. But since I started using just the WEP2 alone as my security, now I can finally watch You Tube without lag or delay. And also this is a good way to check to see if you have a good connection or slow connection. Try it for yourself.
Overall, I am loving this router now since it's work like it supposed to and I'm glad that I took a chance and well worth the money. I hope it does the same to some people."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Review 18 for Apple® AirPort Extreme Wireless-N Wireless Base Station

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Best router I have ever owned. 04/04/2008
By TomL83 from Indianapolis, IN

What's great about it: Insanely fast speeds over both G and N connections
What's not so great: I didn't buy it sooner!

"This router is amazing. I did a speed test with my old D-Link, and only got about 3000 kbps.. With the Apple AirPort Extreme, I get 12000 kbps. AMAZING. (My comcast connection only goes 8000 kbps.. it's eventually throttled down to that speed.)
I just copied all of my files from my old XP machine to my new MacBook Pro, and it's just like having a wired connection (over N). 28.5 gigs of files in only 2 hours... sweet.
Setting it up is extremely easy too.. the entire setup process is done (over wireless!) with the setup cd.. no more typing in IP addresses of your router to set it up.. VERY nice.
If you're thinking about buying this but don't like the high price, BUY IT.
You won't be dissapointed."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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