Apple today announced a new model AirPort Express that supports 802.11n wireless networking, confirming information first leaked by the company's Swiss online retail store..jpg)
The $99 product doesn't offer support for network hard drives connected to the USB port on the gadget, but does continue to permit network printer sharing over that port. Clearly Apple wants people to invest in AirPort Extreme or Time Capsule in order to share storage across their network.
"Apple is leading the way with a broad range of innovative 802.11n base stations for almost any wireless networking need," said Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing.
Other than the introduction of the faster wireless standard, little else about the product has changed: support for streaming music, some security and the ability to support up to ten users on the network remain.
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It also uses only 10/100
It also uses only 10/100 Ethernet, negating some of the speed advantages of 802.11n.
WTF?
Unless your incoming internet connection is faster than 100Mbps that doesnt matter.
The airport express functions as a wireless access point/ wireless extender for an existing network, it is NOT a router that is used for both wired and wireless netowrking. So all it is there to do is broadcast an incoming connection which can be no faster than the pipe bringing it in. the transfer speed on the network is unaffected by the incoming connection and only correlates to computers talking to each other on that network. Which over an n network, can be approx 300mbps over 5ghz frequency currently.
so unless you have an incoming connection that is faster than the 100Mbps plug on the device, it has no bearing on the transfer speed of the wireless network and will not slow it down.
This matters where you use
This matters where you use an airport express as a network extender. Say, you have an Extreme in your den but you have a file server in the garage, connected via an Express. 5 GHz 802.11n is theoretically 300 Mbps, but reality is it maxes out around 100 Mbps, and less going through walls.
That's ridiculous. You're
That's ridiculous. You're assuming you want this device for the sole purpose of surfing the net on some machine.
I want an N speed wireless extender to speed up file sharing across the home lan...the FAST Ethernet becomes a 100Mbs bottleneck in that scenario, doesn't it?
I don't really know much
I don't really know much about the airport. If I brought this to a hotel, could I use this for wireless internet access?
I don't really know much:
I don't really know much: Yes, that is one of its advertised uses; have done that and it works pretty well.
Worthless
Worthless without 10/100/1000! I sometimes wonder about the engineers at Apple.....802.11N with a 10/100 pipeline!
Bah.
The lack of a 1000 Mb/sec ethernet interface doesn't seem to matter much for home users that use DSL or Cable modems. I have yet to see any model of Cable/DSL modem from any manufacturer that has anything other than a 10/100 Mb/sec interface (let me know if you find one). And furthermore, I have yet to see a provider pump more than 25 Mbit/second.
And that doesn't even consider the real-world performance of 802.11n. I suspect that if you're expecting to pump 300 Mbit/second through any 802.11n device, you'll be in for a disappointment.
So although more is better, I seriously doubt that a typical home user would be impacted by the lack of a 1000 Mbit ethernet interface. Maybe you're sending raw video to an encoder or something - if so, get yourself a dedicated fiber link.
the Ethernet is for input,
the Ethernet is for input, how fast is your Internet connection for gods sake
Re: the Ethernet is for input
Please stop assuming everyone will use this product as you would. The Ethernet port can be used for bridging. So if you are in a location where you can get 802.11n at 100+ Mbps speeds, then gigabit ethernet is desirable.
Granted it is tough to get 100+ Mbps speeds, but gigabit ethernet would be useful in those conditions. Apple could have spent the extra 50 cents to put it in.
Why is there still no
Why is there still no Airport with build-in modem?
Then we could get rid of those 2 boxes, 2 wires and 2 adapters at last.
Ik have Linksys here. Modem and router in 1.
Much simpler!
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