AirPort Extreme Base Station reviewed

This is an excerpt taken from macworld.

There are two different kinds of newness in the Airport Extreme: firmware (software) and hardware. On the firmware front, Apple has added the ability to connect over the Internet to any drive plugged into the USB port on the back of the AirPort Extreme. (Both current and previous-generation AirPort Extremes get this new feature.) Simply enter your MobileMe credentials in the MobileMe preference pane on the Airport Extreme (a MobileMe account is required for this feature; be aware that an e-mail-only MobileMe account won’t get you Back to My Mac functionality) and you can access the attached drive via any Mac running Leopard that has Back to My Mac enabled with that same MobileMe account. In my testing, this feature worked well, but is highly dependent on the network conditions. A tightly controlled network (in an office, say) might have the ports that Back to My Mac needs blocked off, but the feature should work in most public hot spots.

The hardware additions are more numerous, but you wouldn’t know it from the outside of the unit. The casing hasn’t changed a bit, nor have the ports on the back. What have changed are the radios inside. The AirPort Extreme now has two Wi-Fi radios, which enable a feature called simultaneous dual-band. Basically, the AirPort Extreme sets up two different 802.11n (Draft N) networks: a 5GHz-band network only for newer Macs, and a 2.4GHz-band network required for older devices that use 802.11b and 802.11g protocols (802.11n can use either band). Computers, iPhones, and other devices connect to whichever network they are compatible with. That means devices which include support for the fast 5GHz-band will always use that band when appropriate.

For the complete review, hit the link below.

source:macworld