Apple Airport Extreme Gen 5 Reviewed

[Arty50]

Thanks for doing the review! I love the site and the thorough and easily comparible reviews. That said, the last line in the article isn't really accurate

"And certainly not worth paying the top-dollar that Apple is customarily charging."

5th Gen Airport Extreme: $179
Cisco E4200: $159 - $179
Netgear WNDR4000: $130 - $175
Zyxel NBG5715: $185

I just don't see how this is such a premium. It's not that much more than the Cisco and Netgear routers and it's slighly less than the Zyxel. I'd gladly pay the slight difference for the Apple over the Netgear too after my experience with Netgear support. That was 90 minutes of pure hell. So, my point is that it's priced well compared to the competition.

 

[GregN]

That said, the last line in the article isn't really accurate

"And certainly not worth paying the top-dollar that Apple is customarily charging."

5th Gen Airport Extreme: $179
Cisco E4200: $159 - $179
Netgear WNDR4000: $130 - $175
Zyxel NBG5715: $185

I just don't see how this is such a premium. It's not that much more than the Cisco and Netgear routers and it's slighly less than the Zyxel. I'd gladly pay the slight difference for the Apple over the Netgear too after my experience with Netgear support. That was 90 minutes of pure hell. So, my point is that it's priced well compared to the competition.

Did you see the part of the review that said:

Missing:

Web-based administration
RIP v1, v2, v2 multicast and static routing
UPnP
Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS)
Traffic statistics
Firewall feature scheduling
Triggered port forwarding
WAN ping blocking
Inbound / outbound service control w/ scheduling
URL / domain web filtering
Wireless client-to-client isolation
Tranmit power control (100, 90, 75, 50, 25, 10%)
Transmit data rate

All the rest of the routers you list have a Web Admin interface, UPnP, WPS and full firewall features.

The Zyxel adds VPN support.

Given what the Apple Airport is lacking, it sounds like a premium price to me....

 

[claykin]

Did you see the part of the review that said:



All the rest of the routers you list have a Web Admin interface, UPnP, WPS and full firewall features.

The Zyxel adds VPN support.

Given what the Apple Airport is lacking, it sounds like a premium price to me....

GregN

Don't bother trying to convince Apple fanboys. They'd like it even if it was a box of rocks for $179.

Just kidding!

Its an aright router, but unless you love Apple products, its not really on most people's radar.

 

[hmurchison]

GregN

Its an aright router, but unless you love Apple products, its not really on most people's radar.

Pretty much. With the AEX a Mac user knows that it will work properly with other Apple devices and initiatives.

I'm actually looking forward to the iOS setup feature as option to configuration via a Mac. This way if the router is in another room an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad will be able to handle the config as you stand by the router.

 

[Arty50]

Yup, fanboy here. That's why the new Zyxel and the Asus RT-N66U (when it comes out) are at the top of my list right now. I'm just saying there's something to be said for a rock solid product with pretty good performance at a decent price in comparison to the current competition.

Brian Klug summed it up pretty well in the Anand article:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4577/...-and-time-capsule-4th-gen-review-faster-wifi-

"There’s a stigma that Apple gear is more expensive, and for the 3TB Time Capsule that may be the case, but the Airport Extreme is actually right near where it should be. Take for comparison the Linksys E4200, which is a 2x3:2 device on 2.4GHz, and 3x3:3 on 5GHz, and also Broadcom based. That device runs for $179.99 and features similar functionality including a USB 2.0 port for sharing devices. At $179.00, the Airport Extreme offers full 3x3:3 on both 2.4 and 5GHz, albeit the E4200 does have considerably more Tx power, which we'll investigate in a forthcoming article.

I guess the reason that I personally use an Airport Extreme (in conjunction with another device for NAT) is that it's really one of a small number of 802.11n dual-band APs I've tried that actually works without locking up, becoming unstable periodically, dropping the session from overheating when being pushed to 100% for hours, or requiring a daily reboot. There are just so many other consumer level 802.11n APs that either fall short or are incredibly frustrating and unreliable. Thus far, I've been using an Airport Extreme Gen 5 and Time Capsule Gen 4 as my primary AP with over 12 devices attached to each one for the greater part of a month without a single instability. It's that kind of stability that really sells it for me, even with 3x3:3 out of the picture."

I guess I'm just sick of all the Apple hyperbole on both sides. It's a pretty good AP with a price inline with it's competitors. You can't say that's not true. It has some additional features the others don't have plus it lacks some too, as you've listed. It's give and take, like anything else. If it works for you great. If it doesn't, fine. You don't have to buy it after all. But it's not overpriced in it's category, which is dual-band three stream wireless routers. I don't see how you can argue that.

 

[claykin]

Arty50

I cannot argue with you.

I have several friends who do home theater and they ALL use the Airport Extreme's with Crestron. They claim they have not found a more reliable wifi solution unless they up the ante and go for Cisco, etc. Obviously if the homeowner can afford Crestron they can afford a high priced enterprise AP solution too. Nevertheless I'm told the AE and Apple Extender (whatever they call that thing) does the job in most cases.

Obviously YMMV.

 

[GregN]

I guess I'm just sick of all the Apple hyperbole on both sides. It's a pretty good AP with a price inline with it's competitors. You can't say that's not true. It has some additional features the others don't have plus it lacks some too, as you've listed. It's give and take, like anything else. If it works for you great. If it doesn't, fine. You don't have to buy it after all. But it's not overpriced in it's category, which is dual-band three stream wireless routers. I don't see how you can argue that.

I'm neither a fan boy or a hater. But to say it can't be argued, that just isn't the case. It can be, see my previous message. The Airport is overpriced given the capabilities that are to be found on its competitors.

 

[thiggins]

I just don't see how this is such a premium. It's not that much more than the Cisco and Netgear routers and it's slighly less than the Zyxel. I'd gladly pay the slight difference for the Apple over the Netgear too after my experience with Netgear support. That was 90 minutes of pure hell. So, my point is that it's priced well compared to the competition.

I was unclear and I'll correct this. What I meant is expensive for selling price, not list price.

Apple products are discounted very little. A quick check of Amazon showed the following lowest prices for your listed routers (in []).

5th Gen Airport Extreme: $179 [$170]
Cisco E4200: $159 - $179 [$135]
Netgear WNDR4000: $130 - $175 [$139]
Zyxel NBG5715: $185 [$177]
TRENDNET TEW-692GR [$136]

So both the Cisco and Netgear are much cheaper than the AirportX. ZyXEL isn't, but it includes an IPsec endpoint. On the other hand, neither the WNDR4000 nor E4200 support three streams on both bands. The most directly comparable product is the TRENDnet, which is about $30 cheaper.

The AirportX isn't a bad product. It's just not a particularly good value and certainly not the outstanding performer that some people have made it out to be.

 

[oldthor]

Couldn't agree more

I was unclear and I'll correct this. What I meant is expensive for selling price, not list price.

Apple products are discounted very little. A quick check of Amazon showed the following lowest prices for your listed routers (in []).

5th Gen Airport Extreme: $179 [$170]
Cisco E4200: $159 - $179 [$135]
Netgear WNDR4000: $130 - $175 [$139]
Zyxel NBG5715: $185 [$177]
TRENDNET TEW-692GR [$136]

So both the Cisco and Netgear are much cheaper than the AirportX. ZyXEL isn't, but it includes an IPsec endpoint. On the other hand, neither the WNDR4000 nor E4200 support three streams on both bands. The most directly comparable product is the TRENDnet, which is about $30 cheaper.

The AirportX isn't a bad product. It's just not a particularly good value and certainly not the outstanding performer that some people have made it out to be.

Apple products are normally not discounts so why when looking at the MSRP the Apple router appears price competitive in reality it's not even close. I simply wouldn't seriously consider the Apple router because of the premium price

 

[sfx2000]

Long-Time reader, first time caller, Tim.

Take away the anti-Apple editorial comments, please...

The Apple Airport Extreme 5th is a fair performing 3*3 stream dual-band router at a premium price. The real question is... is it worth the slight premium over the others?

Truth be told, Apple has traded off features for stability and performance.

Yes, it doesn't have all the bells and whistles that Netgear, D-Link, Buffalo, and Cisco-Linksys offer, not having an internal web-server could be considered a plus... what I like about the Airport series (AP Extreme, AP Express, Time Capsule) is their stability and performance - they're no easier or more difficult to setup than any other router, but the stability is the key point in my purchase decision... it's nice not having to reboot the router every week "just because" - my old Linksys WRT-610N was just as fast for two stream clients, but the stability issues there...

Some recommended corrections on the review:

1) Guest Network is provided for both bands, the review mentions 2.4 GHz only
2) Port Forwarding - static as well as dynamic through NAT-PMP (similar to uPNP)
3) 5GHz can be named separate, with the following caveat, the Guest Network will have the same name in both bands (e.g. Airport, Airport 5GHz, but the Airport Guest has to use the same for both bands)
4) IPv6 - fully supported, but agree with the review, it's a bit arcane, but if you set up a tunnel, it works, not just for Macs, but for all platforms.

Comments:

Lack of WEP is not a bad thing - time to say goodbye to WEP, it's not much better than running an open network, and the performance hit to 802.11n is yet another reason... if you're stilll running STA's that absolutely need WEP, then the Airport series is likely not the best AP for you...

The lack of Wide Channels in 2.4Ghz, I believe, is a plus - less interference for other wireless devices that share the same frequency band - bluetooth is a good example, but also having wide channels in 2.4Ghz is challenging enough in a mid-to-high noise environment. One thing about wide channels is yes, one could get possible better bit rates at the physical layer (MCS), but you're sacrificing error correction and coding gain. If you're in a low-noise environment, it's not a big deal, but in a residential neighborhood, or better yet, in an apartment complex, where the neighbor's AP's are also running, likely either in the primary or secondary channels, you will lose performance at the network layer (TCP/IP and UDP). MCS is not everything, you really have to look at packets...

The routing performance - not related to the WiFi chipsets 5th Gen, but to the firmware, and earlier AP Extreme N users also benefit from this.

WPS - is supported - you have to read the manual... in a nutshell...

1) select the basestation in Airport Utility
2) Click on Manual Setup
3) Go to the Base Station Menu on the menubar
4) Select "Add Wireless Client..."

WPS is a mess... Apple is no better than anybody else - sad to see this state of affairs... lucky for most that WPS is more marketing than real world...

Getting back to the 2.4Ghz Wide Channels - note that all current Apple STA's set the 40MHz-Intolerant bit in 2.4Ghz - it would be an interesting test for all AP vendors to see if they honor this flag...

Now some asks...

1) Disk Performance - not just for the AP Extreme, but for any SOHO router/ap, this is going to be a big deal for some...
2) WDS (or proprietary network extensions) - if supported, would be interesting to see the setup and performance on the extended network.

 

[convergent]

I just decided to go for one of these, and though I love Apple products I'm not opposed to using other stuff. I tried a Netgear WNDR3700 for a while, but had to reboot it too often for problems, and for some reason its not started clipping my upstream bandwidth. I would have never guessed it would do that and had Time Warner out here for quite a while trying to find a problem with my upstream and finally we bypassed the router and bing... worked as advertised. So the Netgear is getting retired for the Extreme. I have a couple of Airport Expresses that give some flexible options too. The functions that are missing I don't need to use, so hopefully the high user ratings are for real on the Extreme and I'll be happy with it.

 

[pgoodwin1]

Newbie to Forum - hi. Fantastic site. Reviews are thorough. The Charts are so good. As for the AEBS 5th gen, the Price /Performance charts show this device to fare pretty well. I bought one a month ago and it virtually installed itself. The manual setup worked without a hitch and it's been working great. I have a MacBook Pro, a Dell laptop, 2 iPhones and 2 iPads working fine on the wireless and an iMac running on a gigabit port. Very stable-wish I could say the same about TW RoadRunner. Average throughput went down since before Christmas during peak usage periods-lots of new toys sold this year I guess

There's a few wireless routers with better pride/performance, but not all of them have good user reviews out there. Even if you disregard the bozo idiot reviews, there's some red flags.

I took the SNB Price/Performance chart just for the WAN to LAN throughput and looked at all of them on the chart that were as good or better than the AEBS. I calculated $ per star rating.

The results below are for the ones that scored 4 stars and up with a significant enough number of reviews. I'll do this for the other SNB chart parameters (i.e. LAN to WAN, 2.4 GHZ up etc) when I get some time-pretty time consuming. Here's what fell out (ranked by dollar/star) above the dotted line. There's some other good info in this list-look at the percentage of reviews that are 1-2 stars. The AEBS and the Cisco E3200 come out ahead base on the best percentage of reviews of 3 stars and up. The EnGenius is also good but only had 22 reviews so not much certainty there.

ESR9855G *EnGenius * Multimedia Enhanced Wireless N Gaming Router with Gigabit * $20.50/star. *$82 Newegg, 4.5 stars/22reviews on Google, 3. 1-2 star reviews 14%, *probably not enough reviews to be meaningful.

E3200 *Cisco *High Performance Dual-Band N Router *gigabit $27.25/star * *$109 minus $30 special Amazon 4 stars/142 reviews, *15 *1-2 star reviews 11%, 4.5 stars on Google/485 reviews

RT-N56U ASUS *Black Diamond Dual-Band Gigabit Wireless-N Router * *$31/star * $124, 4 stars/449 reviews, 82. 1-2 stars 18%

Airport Extreme Base Station 5th gen, $170, 4.5 stars/135 reviews, 16. 1-2star 12%, * 10 * 1-star *$37.78/star

WNDR4500 Netgear. *N900 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router * * $45/star. **$180 * 4 star/160 reviews, 42. 1-2 star. 26%

--------------------------------------------------------------------
not ranked in any particular order

Product HD Media Router 2000 * * *DIR-827 gigabit * **D-Link $142. 3.5 stars/6 reviews amazon

Product N750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router*WNDR4000 Company NETGEAR * *$126. 3.5 stars/168 reviews, 39 *1-star Amazon

Product Maximum Performance Wireless-N Router*Linksys E4200 gigabit*Cisco $159 - $30 gift card special, 3.5 stars/385 reviews/100 one -two star reviews

Product 300Mbps Wireless N Router with Gigabit Switch.*ESR9850 *EnGenius $60 amazon. 3.5 stars/22reviews

Product N600 wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router.*WNDR3700v2 Netgear. $99 Amazon, 3.5 stars/781, *155. *1-star

Product N750 DB Wireless Dual-Band N+ Router
F9K1103 Belkin $100 Amazon 3stars/129 reviews, 50 * 1-2star

 

[pgoodwin1]

The SNB Price / Performance charts were so useful in getting started on the comparison, they're awesome charts. I didn't make a science project out of this and some might puke all over it. But getting the real user data into the comparison is what we all do when shopping for a new device after reading the reviews like the ones on this site. So I thought it would be interesting since there's always lively discussion when Apple's products show up in reviews. When you look and data and leave the sentiment out, the AEBS is a good buy, as are some of the others. Obviously, specific model feature and system needs many times narrow the choices down to where we have to make that choking tough decision when the red flags are there telling us to be wary.

I didn't spend a huge amount of time getting the prices-a quick look at Amazon and Google lists.

 

[sfx2000]

additional comments with regards to "missing items" mentioned in the review...

> Web-based administration

Desktop App (Mac/Windows/iOS) - not having a web service that faces both public and private interfaces could be considered a plus...

> UPnP

NAT-PMP supported - many apps use both - NAT-PMP is considered by many to be a better solution - not having UPnP is more of an issue for Windows users... which likely are not the target for this device.

> RIP v1, v2, v2 multicast

Supported automatically via BSD which is the core OS of this device - not exposed to the user, but it's there, native to BSD

> Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS)

Supported via desktop app - not wifi alliance certified since there is not a button on the device - in hindsight post-reaver, Apple's implementation for WPS functionality is likely better than most...

> Traffic statistics

Supported via desktop app - more info here than on most routers - connected rate, SN, band service is on. Also supports a strong SNMP implementation for exporting this real time to another service (think MRTG and other similar apps) - the SNMP interface can be disabled via desktop app.

> Firewall feature scheduling
> Triggered port forwarding
> WAN ping blocking
> Inbound / outbound service control w/ scheduling

How many people actually use these features?

> URL / domain web filtering

Use OpenDNS or other service - can define DNS hosts on this router...

> Wireless client-to-client isolation

Supported on guest network (dual-band also supported for Guest Network)

> Tranmit power control (100, 90, 75, 50, 25, 10%)

Supported via desktop app under "Wireless Network Options" - global for both radios - does one need more than 100/50/25/10 percent?

> Transmit data rate

why is this considered a missing feature? Most routers do not have this...

> Guest Network runs on the 2.4 GHz band only

Incorrect - Guest Network is dual band - Guest network cannot be extended - guest network is IPV4 only

> Pv6 is supported. But the settings are unlike any I've seen on other IPv6-enabled products

agreed that IPV6 setup is odd on the AP platform, but once sorted, it works extremely well and provides the right information for Win/Mac/Linux to configure and use - plus here is that the AP platform also allows for IPV4 and IPV6 DNS hosts to be specified. Another upside, once IPV6 is configured in the device, it enables additional IPV6 firewall capabilities - I've not seen this on any other consumer grade router.

One additional comment:

> Apple is the lone holdout in blocking acces to 40 MHz bandwidth mode in the 2.4 GHz band

I absolutely support them on this - not just because it is spectrum friendly for neighbors, but also for Bluetooth. Wide channels in urban/suburban environments general causes more problems than they solve... the WiFi alliance really missed the opportunity to make a stand on this item...

> It's just yet-another simultaneous dual-band N router that some people will rave about and others will rave at

Agreed... but one that is stable, which some devices gathering much attention these days, are not - more importantly, what Apple advertises, they deliver...

minor gripe w/Apple - most recent desktop apps on the Mac side are hobbled and do not expose features that are present in earlier versions of the Airport Utility - lucky that 5.6 is also downloadable, and can run along side the new Airport Utility - nominally for support of older AP's, but it still supports the current generations of the APX, APE, and TC...

 

[overdrive31]

Pretty much. With the AEX a Mac user knows that it will work properly with other Apple devices and initiatives.

I find it silly, Airport Extreme has WPS(the safest implementation in light of the recent flaw found in WPS), but not one Apple wireless client supports it. Another thing that strikes me as odd, with the new craze over Siri, most routers even the Airport Extreme are miss-configured for supporting Siri over wifi and Siri will not automatically fallback to cellular(something should be done in IOS to allow such) when it doesn't work while wifi is enabled. The true fix is to allow WAN ping(when disabled it does stealth/hide your presence on the internet) entirely(not very safe) or just from the Siri server IP(safe). You can only use Facetime on wifi, but you must disable wifi to use Siri...how lame, well until you allow WAN ping.

 

[sfx2000]

I find it silly, Airport Extreme has WPS(the safest implementation in light of the recent flaw found in WPS), but not one Apple wireless client supports it.

Yah - I think the guys @ Apple - "WPS is lame, but we'll do it better" - but within the APE/APX experience, it works with Mac clients, never checked IOS... I have a radius server in-house on my home network, so WPS isn't really an issue - but I'm not the typical user...

Another thing that strikes me as odd, with the new craze over Siri, most routers even the Airport Extreme are miss-configured for supporting Siri over wifi and Siri will not automatically fallback to cellular(something should be done in IOS to allow such) when it doesn't work while wifi is enabled. The true fix is to allow WAN ping(when disabled it does stealth/hide your presence on the internet) entirely(not very safe) or just from the Siri server IP(safe). You can only use Facetime on wifi, but you must disable wifi to use Siri...how lame, well until you allow WAN ping.

Not a router issue - it's a client implementation issue...

Don't get me started about APN's, Android, and carrier services over 3G and WiFi...

 

[overdrive31]

Hmm, I hadn't experienced WPS on a Mac and limited research pointed nowhere, so had assumed OS X didn't support WPS. IOS does not support WPS, that I am certain.

The routers are not really miss-configured, and yes, it is Siri's implementation that requires an router configuration change to solve. I think I recall Steve saying, "It just works!" - must have heard him wrong, maybe it was "It just breaks, you'll see!" lol

 

[sfx2000]

Interesting story - but directly relates back to the Airport Extreme 5th Gen

Was at a conference recently - approx 150 attendees spread across a ballroom and 4 smaller conference rooms here in San Diego at the Hyatt Aventine - nearby La Jolla on the east side of the 5...

Anyways - the group that facilitated the meeting was Mac centric - AP Extremes in each meeting room, and two in the ballroom.

Where it gets interesting - they were all centrally managed via their MacMini running Snow Leopard Server (MacOS X 10.6). I was talking with the admin, and he related that the AP Extremes when running just as AP's can easily take 100 users per AP when managed externally, and OS X Server, even on a MacMini can route Internal/External traffic with little degradation on throughput... not only were they managing the AP's, but also serving up the Document Well for Win/Mac/Linux via CIFS and FTP for a 2.3 terabyte document archive - the external storage was a FW800 third party RAID5 with backup.

Total out of pocket was about 3 grand total - for a setup that can easily fit into a pelican box and carried onto the plane for the next venue.

Just wanted to share - not many sub-$200 "consumer" AP's can be centrally managed similar to enterprise gear... apparently the Airport family can...

When you tie things together - you can have a high end NAS/WiFi/Network services solution - and there, oddly enough, Apple has a solution that is cost competitive.

 

[Unregistered]

So, when is the Extreme Generation 6 expected out?