Ends 11/13 at 8AM PT. eBay with Goldstar Gaming has the Apple Airport Extreme Wireless-N Dual-Band Base Station, 5th Generation (MD031LL/A) for $139 with free shipping. Only $32 more than the previously posted refurbished version. The 5th gen model features significantly improved signal strength and range over the previous version. See in-depth review here.
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A Wireless N router for $139? And they shorted us on an ethernet port?
Yeah, but it's better. It's got the Wai Fais.
I gladly paid $179 new for this a year or so ago. I haven't had to reset it once. I'll trade an ethernet port for non-stop service any day of the week. I'm sure there are great offerings from Netgear, D-Link, Linksys and others, but I've had nothing but bad luck with other brands of routers.
FYI: I'm a computer rodeo cowboy; the simplicity of the dumbed-down Apple products (unfortunately) appeal to me most of the time.
#3, got a Netgear that has been running for about a year too without any issues. On 24/7 and supporting 3 laptops, a TV, 1 cell phone, 2 tablets, and a WD TV live. Can even log into a particular server from outside (once setup properly).
So I guess our two anecdotal examples cancel out.
It's an awesome router, well worth the money. One of the great features is that you can use an Airport Express (or an other Airport Extreme) to extend your network and it will also function as an Ethernet bridge. I use an Airport Express and an Ethernet switch in one of my TV setups to hook up all the devices (BluRay player, TiVo, Vulkano, AppleTV, GoogleTV, receiver) instead of having to hook up each one of them individually through WiFi. Way easier, more efficient and cheaper. You can get el-cheapos for $20, but a good router will still cost you in the $100 range. This one is well worth the price, especially if you own at least one piece of Apple gear.
#1: where did you get the idea it was refurbished? It's new.
Wait, so you're saying that you bought a $180 wireless router, then you bought a $100 airport express, plus a wired switch to connect your TV devices? That's around $300 in networking equipment.
You know what also supports wireless bridging? Just about every other wireless router out there.
Like this one for example: http://bensbargains.net/deal/buffalo-airstation-high-power-n600-dual-band-router-70-at-newegg-280587/
or this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156353
or this one for $42 AR: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320088
also this one: http://bensbargains.net/deal/buffalo-whr-hp-g300n-nfiniti-router-amp-access-point-40-at-newegg-280946/
Hey, here's another one for $16 that also happens to support pulling internet from a 3g connection: http://bensbargains.net/deal/encore-enhwi-3gn3-3g-wireless-n150-router-16-at-newegg-280468/
Let's look at that first one, the Buffalo N600:
Features include:
-Offering simultaneous wireless operation on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands
-five gigabit ports
-Secure Guest Network
-USB connection for file and printer sharing
-Bridge and repeat using multiple units. Endlessly expand your wireless network to -cover large areas and improve pe
So will this router actually manage to keep both our iPad 2's and an iPod Touch (latest version) from dropping wifi connectivity all the time? None can manage to keep a connection with either a Linksys or two Netgear routers I have had for much longer than 30 mins at a time when in use, sometimes right in the middle of streaming music or video or surfing the net.
My older Sony laptop, my Compaq desktop and my Xoom Android tablet never drop a connection unless I am rebooting the router trying to get an Apple device to work and I am beyond frustrated with Apple at this point for their inability to play well with other non-Apple equipment. There are a nauseating number of posts on Apple and other help forums concerning this issue (the iPad 2 is notorious for this) and the only response from corporate is to deny there is a problem at all or blame other's equipment or insinuate that the person making the complaint is too dumb to understand or correctly report the symptoms.
Apple's big schtick is supposed to be about ease of use and quality, but so far I ain't seeing it. Sorry for venting.
#7, thank you for your suggestions. Yes, I spent $300 on network equipment, so what? Took me 5 minutes to setup and configure, and it's been working flawlessly for the past 2 years. It does bridging, wireless network extension, and as an added bonus I use the AirPlay feature to stream audio to my Sonos system. The reliability and the time I saved configuring is well worth the extra money. I'm done babysitting lousy D-Link, Buffalo, Netgear or Linksys equipment, and trying to find out when they'll get around to issue a fix for the hardware version of the product I bought.
I agree with Compwiz, bought a Buffalo 11g and flashed DD-WRT on it and it worked great, recently upgraded to a Cisco 11n w/GbE which was also flashed to DD-WRT and working great.
Think the Cisco (refurb) cost $20 or so then I wanted to supertweak it for longevity so I got some polymer capacitors from Digikey and swapped those in.
I mention this because the Airport Extreme also uses polymer capacitors so like the one I modded it will likely have a longer lifespan than the typical off the shelf consumer grade router, though you can get business class stuff for >$100 from Cisco et al. which are also built like this.
On the other hand, by the time a router you buy today fails from bad caps, there may be other reasons to upgrade anyway like a new wireless standard.
Looks like Woot has that Buffalo N600 router that I mentioned on sale for $50 + shipping today.
link: http://bensbargains.net/deal/buffalo-airstation-high-power-n600-dual-band-router-55-at-baconwoot--281299/
Along with all the features I listed above(basically the same as the $180 apple router but with more ethernet ports), it also supports dd-wrt, and in fact comes pre-loaded with it.