Apple AirPort Express Base Station 10/100BASE-T Ethernet WAN port with AirTunes

Reviewed by: Azimov08

Duration of ownership: 2 Days

Strengths: Ver fast

Weaknesses: everything

Overall: Do not buy this product. Absolutely the worst use of $99.00 ever. This thing is so buggy, and so unreliable, there should be a law-suit filed against Apple.

Reviewed by: tj23678

Strengths: Small, has connectivity not found in most devices. Seems to be made well.

Weaknesses: Installation not intuitive for the average user. Lots of users have useability issues that Apple has not resolved.Appears to use a non-standard optical cable.

Overall: I just wanted a way to wirelessly add a kitchen stereo to my living room stereo. And I came across this device, it has optical and mini-jack audio connections. Just what I wanted. Set up was fairly simple, though the manual offers little real information. It took about 30 minutes to get iTunes playing through my kitchen stereo from my windows based notebook. And it doesn't sound bad. I when I run 2 sets of speakers at the same time from my media center PC, I get intermittent pauses in the music. If I run just one set of speakers, no problem. In researching this problem I find a lot of people have this issue. And there is no single fix for it. It involves a lot of trial and error with the various settings available to you, positioning of wires and devices. I've been dinking with this on and off for 3 weeks now without much luck. Other than it's something to do with my media center PC as my notebook doesn't exhibit the issue. All of this means delving into the various devices involved in my system, playing with versions of firmware and drivers. This is not usually something the typical computer user is familiar with. But there's a lot of permutations to try and it will take a while to sort out. Hence only a satisfactory rating. It works great in some situations, but it's not quite ready for primetime.

Reviewed by: sreddy7

Strengths: Great design and easy to setup and use

Weaknesses: Long term durability is not there. I owned one previously and it last only about 2 1/2 years.

Overall: The feature of being able to play your computer music into your stereo system is great. It works flawlessly as a wireless hub. The only issue that I had was that it doesn't have a great long term durability. I bought one previously, but it failed after 2 1/2 years. It is hard to layoff on the features. It is nice. Obviously, I thought it was worth it. I bought another one.Sri

Reviewed by: aaronwashburn

Strengths: easy to set upsmall

Weaknesses: none

Overall: I added this as a satellite station to an existing network. Couldn't have been easier to set up. I can now use the base station to print wirelessly, and the satellite station is connected to speakers to listen to music from my laptop.

Reviewed by: rskolin

Strengths: Very easy to install and get running. Very easily hidden so ugly wires don't show. Works great with printer.

Weaknesses: Had an issue where it was not recognized. Troubleshooting per Apple's instructions did not solve the problem, but simply unplugging and replugging into the electric outlet solved the problem.

Overall: As with most of Apple's products, this unit is very simple to install and operate. I like the fact that it can be plugged directly into an electrical outlet, hidden out of sight with associated wiring hidden also. Troubleshooting steps did not solve a recognition problem. I fixed an issue by simply unplugging and replugging the unit into the outlet, after repeatedly following Apple's instructions.

Reviewed by: Kawdjer

Strengths: Airtunes and USB plug-ins work well, wireless works good when plugged in via ethernet.

Weaknesses: Only extends internet from the Airport Extreme.

Overall: I bought this a few weeks ago, so far it's been a pretty neat device. I love being able to stream Airtunes, and the USB is handy. But I do have one problem with it; it's that it only extends/receives wireless from the Airport Extreme, which is kind of disappointing, since I wanted to use it mainly for extending my wireless. But the Airtunes, USB and wireless capabilities still make it worth the cost, and for that, I must give out kudos to Apple. But if you're looking for something just to repeat/extend your wireless, this won't do it unless you plan on getting an Extreme with it, which is what I'm going to do soon. Thanks Apple, just next time try to be a little more friendly with other brands of wireless routers, and not just your own, if possible.