10 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
Airport Express 5 in 1 WiFi
Date of Review: Nov 26, 2005
The Bottom Line: This is a must have for anyone wanting a small, portable and very flexible Wireless multifunction device.
What is an Airport Express?
No it's not a fast line at the Airport check-in! An Airport Express is Apple's solution to a Portable Wireless Router and is about the size of a Laptop power adapter with the ability to supply 10 devices with Wireless Connectivity, but is that all it does? No way!
What can an Airport Express do for you?
1. Get all of your WiFi enabled devices connected; the Airport Express can connect up to 10 wireless devices when in Stand-Alone Router Mode.
2. Using iTunes and it's 1/8th mini jack output port, the Airport Express can stream Apple's Lossless Audio using AirTunes to any audio device that has an analog or digital optical input, like your home Stereo System for example.
3. Connect your printer to the Airport Express's built in USB port and print from any Windows XP or Mac OSX computer. No need for an expensive Print Server.
4. Do you have a computer that doesn't have WiFi ability and there seems to be no Network cable in site? No problem, just choose the option to connect the Airport Express to your existing Wireless Network and you can easily bridge the two together using the Ethernet port built into the Airport Express.
5. Is your house or business just to big for your WiFi network? Well if your house is that large then you should be able to afford more then one Airport Express! Why not get a bunch of them and place them all over the place and while you do this connect each Airport Express to all of your many Stereo Systems so you can Stream your iTunes music to them. The Airport Express has the ability to Satellite multiple Airport Systems to make one large seamless WiFi Network that can cover large areas.
Am I going to need to take a week off just to figure this thing out?
The Airport Express comes with really easy Setup Software for your PC or Mac that walks you thru the entire setup and simply asks you what you want to do with it and then just makes it happen.
The Airport Express is also designed to be ultra portable and is perfect for traveling. This gives you the ability to turn your Hotel Wired Connection into a Wireless one, feel free to roam about your room! A nice touch is that the Setup Software gives you the ability to save multiple Airport Express setups so that you can easily take advantage of the many uses the Airport Express has to offer.
How could this little miracle device be improved?
An Airport Express can not act as a Wired and Wireless router at the same time , this is because it only has one Ethernet port, and this is needed for your Internet connection.
One other inconvenience that I noticed was when I decided to bring my Airport Express over to a friends place. I wanted to use it for streaming my iTunes music wirelessly to his stereo system. When I got there I was not able to see or even connect to the Airport express with the setup software because the Airport Express was setup to connect to my Network at home which was not available at my friends. The only solution was to do a hard reset. It would be nice if the Airport Express would automatically go into a Stand-Alone Router Mode when it is not able to connect to it's assigned existing router which in this case was my home router.
In conclusion:
Is Apple's Airport Express right for you? If you could use an incredibly small Wireless Router that has a built in USB Print Server, an Analog and Digital out Port for streaming AirTunes audio from iTunes, bridging capabilities and the added bonus of being able to expand your Network by Satelliting multiple Airport Express Stations together then go pick one or more up!
I have one and find that it moves around the house and lets me stream my iTunes music to the Living Room Stereo and my Home Gym Sound System. I also use it to connect an old WiFi-less iMac to my home Internet.
Author Michael Kaye-(www.DigitizeMe.info)
