[Bartinbrook]

Are there any advantages to buying an Apple Airport Base Station over buying a Wi-Fi receiver from other manufacturers?

[Timo]

wireless printing via USB

compatibility w/ airport cards

simpler base station admin (I'm sure others will disagree on this)

[Bartinbrook]

Thanks Timo. So does that mean that non-Apple base stations aren't compatible with Airport cards, or just that Apple base station and cards are faster?

[ghporter]

No, it does not mean that non-Apple products are incompatible. It means more precisely that the software used to configure the Apple products is very similar, so you don't have to translate terminology and so on.

On the flip side, the big advantage is Apple's; they make a lot of money for each AirPort Base Station they sell. Other vendors like Linksys, D-Link, SMC, Netgear, Asante (are you forming the opinion that there are a lot of other vendors?) make solid, reliable equipment that costs a lot less than Apple's products. The drawback here is that most of these companies don't employ the same sort of stylists to design the exterior of the boxes, and they use different terminology in their configuration routines-which are almost all browser-based, I should add.

So it comes down to this: Apple=easy to use without a lot of thought and cool styling, but expensive||Everybody else=requires a little more thought and attention to set up and not Apple-styled, but much less expensive.

All of these products adhere to the same wireless standards (IEEE 802.11b and/or 802.11g), they just have different brand names.

[Bartinbrook]

Thanks for the info - v helpful. I appreciate it.

[merlin]

Pros:
-The ABS looks a lot slicker than other wireless routers
-Wireless printing if your USB printer is supported
-The more expensive model has a modem and option to add an antennae
-Support from Apple
-Designed by Apple so mac software/hardware compatibility is less of a concern
-You can adjust the signal strength to limit your wireless network to a certain radius. Don't know if other routers can do this.

Cons:
-Kinda pricey. I picked up a Linksys and an airport card for about the same price as an ABS. The linksys works fine with my iMac.
-Only one LAN port. There are cheaper routers that have 4, but the point is to go wireless so this may not matter
-The ABS was designed to be configured by a mac (they're might have been a workaround but I forget) as opposed to other products which use browser interfaces which are cross platform.
-No adjustable antennae, but I don't know if that feature really makes any difference
-Apple doesn't have plans to support 802.11i, a protocol which has better security than b or g, though I think the ABS has the capability to be updated to support it
-I've read that other routers have better range

Hope this helps!

[ghporter]

Merlin has it down very well. Note that if you buy the ABS version without external antenna jacks, your range will be much less than if you use ANY access point that has external antennas, and you won't have any way of doing better.

Also, 802.1x authentication, currently being fielded by a lot of hardware manufacturers (it's called WPA-wireless protected access) is a really serious issue, particularly for AirPort users. WEP is fairly good to keep casual snoops out of your network traffic, but a dedicated intruder can break it without too much fuss. Who knows why they would target any specific user, but are you willing to trust your credit card numbers or the use of your Internet connection to them? Shudder! Besides, lots of Mac users just don't bother with WEP at all-too much trouble, too complicated, whatever, they just don't. If Apple refuses to implement WPA, they're telling Mac users "we don't care about your online security." Bad message. I believe in trusting my neighbors, but I lock my doors. And I DO NOT buy products that specifically don't help my security.

Ok, I'm off my soap box...