Apple Airport Express MB321LL/A [NEWEST VERSION]
by Apple Computer
![Apple Airport Express MB321LL/A [NEWEST VERSION]](/images/Apple-Airport-Express-MB321LL-A-NEWEST-VERSION-B0015YJOK2-L.jpg)
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List Price: Our Price: $75.00 You Save: $24.99 (25%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Apple Airport Express MB321LL/A [NEWEST VERSION]
Customer Review: Audio Directly from your Apple Wifi-Enabled Device
Summary: 5 Stars
This little device is great as a wireless access point--truly. Especially now with Apple's latest IOS (4.x). Apple's AirPlay allows you to stream directly from iTunes on your Mac or PC or from your iTouch/iPad/iPhone. This allows you to take whatever audio content, from iTunes or the web that you access via your Apple device, and play it over your home wifi network, through your powered speakers connected to the Airport Express.
I use my iPhone to stream Pandora and NPR broadcasts via their respective apps. Whenever I get home from work, I don't have to turn on a single home entertainment device I have. My Apple device has already found and conneced to my home wifi network as soon as I am in range, so all I do is turn on the Pandora app, select Airport Express from the drop-down in the Pandora user interface, and click play. Music I am streaming from the Internet via my iPhone immediately begins playing from my home speakers! This works exactly the same for the iTouch and iPad. You could totally get a few Airport Express devices and put 'em all over your house and play music in every room--or not. The user interface lets you control which Express devices to use. Even at around $100 a unit, it's still cheaper than a Sonos home-wide implementation.
If you have already sold your soul to Apple and are already using an Apple wifi-enabled device of some kind, you could definitely benefit from adding the Airport Express to your home network--even if you already have a router.
Customer Review: Amazing features in a tiny package at a low price, what more can you ask for?
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased a few of these units primarily to create a wireless multi-room audio system throughout my home. One of the best and overlooked features of these devices, is the digital/analog audio output. If you use iTunes to organize your music, you can stream songs from your library directly to the audio outputs on the router! Place these near stereo systems, a set of PC speakers, what-have-you, and you've got a multi-room audio system. If you have an iPod/Pad/Phone or Android, apps are available (for free!) that let you remotely control the entire system - basically your music collection at your fingertips in every room of your house. Oh, and it's a great wireless base-station too ;-)
Set-up:
I don't think I've ever set up a router as simply and easily as this. Apple has done a darn good job of simplifying setting up or extending wireless networks. Their software has some nice wizards that guide you through the whole config process. My only complaint was that you really had to look around to find the advanced settings/configuration options. The Airport has a lot of configurable options, but they are well-hidden behind the simple wizard interface. That's not necessarily a bad thing, of course.
Further items of interest:
The audio jack can double as an optical SPDIF audio output
There's non-Apple software (Airfoil) available that will also allow you to stream non-iTunes audio content (Pandora? WinMedia Player, whatever) to the Airport.
Customer Review: Easiest Set-up Ever!
Summary: 5 Stars
I absolutely LOVE this wireless router! The main reason is the ease of set-up. I have both a MacBook and a Dell Laptop and they're both working off this little router, as is my wireless printer. I have had several wireless routers in the past and all of them (i thought) were a pain to set up. You had to connect the ethernet to the router and the router to the pc and then unplug the pc and restart and hope it was working (and usually it wasn't and you had to go through all the steps again, and on and on). All you do with the Airport Express is put in the cd that comes with it and download it to your laptop. It takes you through some easy steps to name your wireless connection and select a password so it's private. Plug in the AE to any receptacle, strip or wall, (either before or after you download the cd), then plug in the ethernet directly into the AE. The AE automatically detects your pc's. Everytime u click on the AE icon in your browser, it starts scanning for wireless devices. So you can add more later if you need to. The AE is small and compact, about 3" square approx.
I bought one for my son who has a Hewlett Packard laptop and Wii. It set up very quickly, and detected both the Wii and the laptop, and now he can play games online with his friends.
I can't say enough good things about the Airport Express. Even if you don't own any Mac product at all, it still works and works beautifully with whatever brand of laptop you have.
Customer Review: Almost perfect ... road warrior best friend
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm consultant spending most of my time staying at different hotels where wireless internet connection is often pretty bad or even not available.
Having said that this product seemed to be perfect match since there is no external power supply and can work in bridge mode to share hotel's wired connection.
This is awesome device, very small and perfect for road warriors. I didn't test how far away you can move from this device as I don't care otherwise I would be buying stronger device.
It's been working flawlessly with my Windows laptop, no disconnects whatsoever.
Installation was smooth and don't know what other guys are complaining and creating all those long steps for configuration.
All I can tell is to initially get configure it get your ethernet cable and connect Airport router directly into you computer then run Airport utility wizard where you choose to create wireless network, choose what kind of wirelless network you want, pretty much that's it. Then unplug cable from computer and stick it into either other router/modem or your hotel wired internet connection then turn on wireless on your computer.
It would be a perfection if it had capability to share portable hard drive over built in USB!
I still give it 5 stars because of small size, no external power brick (I hate cables and adapters) and n-band WiFi.
Power plug is removable so you can hook up longer cable or EU plug for those oversee's flights ;)
Customer Review: Beautiful idea. Almost perfect.
Summary: 5 Stars
Just received the AE from Amazon. Tried using the CD from the box, with no success.
Then used the instructions from Gadgethead. Got the AE up and running within 20 minutes.
My configuration:
Base computer: PC.
Software: Windows XP Pro. SP 2.
iTunes 8.0.1.11
Existing wireless network: 802.11-G
Router: Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router.
Remote Speakers: Logitech X-240.
So, I've always wanted to pipe music wirelessly. Just got the system up and running using instructions from Gadgethead.
Some comments:(These may seem pretty obvious to those in the know :)
1. If you already have a wireless router (like me), you may need an additional ethernet cable. I used a spare cable to connect the AE to my router additional slot (without disconnecting the router from the cable modem or the computer).
2. I was not paying attention to the EXACT type of encryption that my network uses (WEP and NOT WEP Transitional...). This was the biggest source of frustration during the setup.
3. Again, this device is definitely not Plug-and-Play!! Instructions from Gadgethead helped a great deal.
I am writing this review within the hour of setting up the AE for wireless music. If things go smoothly, I am planning to add more AEs to the network to get my printer and external hard drive truly networked!