[Mallrat]

I have an ibook 500 with 576 of ram. I was thinking of getting airport so I could search the web on my couch.

But at the apple store, I read the thing and noticed that you do wireless printing and I got excited.

I have a Lexmark E320 laser printer.

So I think there is only one option for airport card at 79 dollars from apple.

But I'm confused on the base station. It seems the new ones are backwards compatbility, which means it would work.

But I wouldn't mind buying a previous version on ebay or craigsllist, but I don't know if those can do wireless printing and if there are any probelms with the odler ones.

So I wonder if my printer would work?

Is airport slower than directly connected to the cable modem or the same?

Thank you.

[MacmanX]

I believe wireless printing requires an AirPort Extreme base station. I don't think the older ones had a USB port (though, my first base station was an AP Extreme so I can't vouch.) However, the Extreme base stations work flawlessly with the old AP cards (this I can vouch for).

As far as download speeds, as long as you have a good signal, there is no performance hit to a cable modem. Airport handles my max 400k/s throughput just as well as CAT-5. Interference or something could slow it down, but unless your base station is on your running microwave while you are gabbing away on you 2.4mhz phone, and downloading the latest LOTR trailer, you shouldn't notice anything.

Printing, I've noticed, varies. My old printer, an Epson 820 Photo Stylus, would really slow down when printing large, high-res pictures over airport (vs. over USB). My new printer, a Cannon i950, prints just as fast either way. So, I guess you might want to ask if anyone has tried it with your printer.

Hope I've cleared things up a bit.

Cheers!

[Thorts]

The last version of the Airport Base Station (Snow version, aka dual ethernet) also has a USB port for shared printing. You can use that version, too. I just got one on ebay for $150, which is considerably less than a new Extreme base..and unless you have more than 10 or so computers sharing the same Airport system, you will not notice the differencein speed with current hardware.

Sean