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Archer C8 or Airport Extreme AC for Mac house?

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Patrick Barry

New Around Here
This may be an obvious call to go for the AAE (refurbished) over the Archer C8, but I'm curious what people might say.

Here's the rundown. I want to replace my current 5th gen AAE and convert it to an AP in a room with terrible signal, connected over powerline. My cable internet is 225 Mbps when connecting my iMac directly to modem over ethernet. Wireless devices include an Macbook Air (ac), iPhone 6 (ac), iPhone 5 (n), 2012 iMac (n), AppleTV 2 (n), Brother wifi printer (g), and then any miscellaneous guest devices, usually phones or laptops. I can wire the AppleTV to the 5th gen AAE when it becomes an access point. I also currently broadcast in n only and use an old WRT54g to as a g only AP for the wifi printer.

The apartment is 2 story, ~1200 sq ft, and get good coverage in most rooms, except the bedroom which is behind a wall with a bunch of metal in it. The 5th gen AAE will move to the bedroom and I want to replace it with either a refurb 6th gen AAE ac, or perhaps the TP-LINK Archer C8 – both similar price points.

There's no telling when/if Apple will update their 2 year old router any time soon, and the Archer C8 seems like a decent alternative, but how does it do with Apple devices? Is there a better alternative? C8 is currently ~$110 new, and reburb AAE is $130.

Thoughts, opinions, suggestions? Thanks!
 
the apple airport extreme would help you to complete your apple collection and looks. Also i think the airport extreme does better with performance and compatibility compared to the archer c8 and would probably give you a reason to throw things at apple when apple branded devices dont work together.

If you're on a budget than you would have to go with the tp-link but the tp-link has only basic features. theres is also the ASUS AC56U having the same ARM A9 CPU too.

There are many options you can consider and netgear R7000 seems to be doing well with the hardware. Theres also linksys WRT1900AC.

I could go on and on with cheaper and better alternatives but they are difficult to configure even for the tech-savvy.
 
If you already have Airports on your network, I would recommend staying with them - 6th Gen Extreme has been around now for a long time, but the firmware is extremely stable, and it's a solid performer - and the Apple Refurb store pricing makes it a decent value.
 
And if you can hold off for a couple of weeks - Apple has their product announcement event Sept 9th - since both the Extreme and Express are a bit old now, perhaps we'll see something outed there...
 
And if you can hold off for a couple of weeks - Apple has their product announcement event Sept 9th - since both the Extreme and Express are a bit old now, perhaps we'll see something outed there...

Oh I wish that were true. I've heard nothing about Apple updating their wifi stuff.
 
Oh I wish that were true. I've heard nothing about Apple updating their wifi stuff.

well, the apple rumour mill has been spinning madly about the iPhone 6S, iPad Pro, and 4th Gen AppleTV...

Nobody expected the iPod Touch 6th Gen last month, it just showed up - and Airports tend to be the same way - they just show up, as they're not a major product, but a supporting player in the product line drama (not discounting the efforts of the SW Developers and HW Engineers that design these things).

If Apple was going to do a MU-MIMO play, this would be the time to do it - as the iDevice product cycle is every 12-18 months... Apple was early to jump into the 802.11ac pool, but when they did, they did it big time with clients and Airports... they move with the deliberate expectation that something is going to make the user experience better, so a MU-MIMO announcement would be a very strong endorsement on their part.
 
well, the apple rumour mill has been spinning madly about the iPhone 6S, iPad Pro, and 4th Gen AppleTV...

Nobody expected the iPod Touch 6th Gen last month, it just showed up - and Airports tend to be the same way - they just show up, as they're not a major product, but a supporting player in the product line drama (not discounting the efforts of the SW Developers and HW Engineers that design these things).

If Apple was going to do a MU-MIMO play, this would be the time to do it - as the iDevice product cycle is every 12-18 months... Apple was early to jump into the 802.11ac pool, but when they did, they did it big time with clients and Airports... they move with the deliberate expectation that something is going to make the user experience better, so a MU-MIMO announcement would be a very strong endorsement on their part.

Yeah agreed. Sure hope they do mention something network related.
 
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