So what is it with Apple products?

[slackerinabox]

I've been having a hell of a time with my network (partially wired, some N) and have been pulling my hair out - 3 routers ranging from $30 to $100 and they've all choked when torrenting and streaming HD 720p mkvs via ethernet.... Really hell of a hard time getting this all to work properly so I just got frustrated and bought an $80 refurb airport extreme....


FLAWLESS... Everything's flawless. Fastest N local file transferring I've experienced and the nothing's choppy at all. I've experienced this before with my iMac as well - everything just works, no need to tinker and no frustrating trial and error troubleshooting. I think I'm finally converted and may ditch my android phone that forcecloses too often and get an iPhone..

How do they continue to have this sort of straight forward stability across product lines? I figured a company that specializes in networking like Linksys, netgear, and belkin would work but all those routers are in the trash while my apple router feels so swank - hell, it has a guest network! and printer sharing's so simple! Not flame bait but really beginning to think that the premium price is due to superior engineering, R&D, and software design, not some pretentious "iSheep tax."

 

[SlitheryDee]

Maybe the airport is gigabit ethernet while the others aren't?

 

[ultimatebob]

Oh boy, another Apple topic.

Breaking out the popcorn and chair...

 

[Riverhound777]

Airport Extreme is pretty good. But try the Airport Express. It's a complete pain in the ass and a piece of shit. I spent hours trying to get it working the way it should, and failed. Tried an Extreme and it worked great. So not all of their products are flawless.

 

[Oyeve]

Airport Extreme is pretty good. But try the Airport Express. It's a complete pain in the ass and a piece of shit. I spent hours trying to get it working the way it should, and failed. Tried an Extreme and it worked great. So not all of their products are flawless.

True dat. The express is utter shit but the 4th and 5th gen extremes are pretty damn good.

 

[cheezy321]

Marketing. It's all in the marketing.

 

[Ichinisan]

Maybe the others weren't dual-band simultaneous?

Seriously, though. I've had the impression for a LONG time that the manufacturers of consumer-grade routers DO NOT WANT them to be reliable. I believe this is actually why Cisco purchased Linksys; because people kept buying cheap Linksys routers for their small businesses instead of fancy, expensive Cisco routers.

 

[LookBehindYou]

Hmm, 80 bucks, where'd you find that at?

 

[Gibson486]

Have you tried the newer N products? I just got a Linksys e3200. It's wireless N is pretty fast. Usually I have issues with wireless, but it was pretty flawless. Also, installation was a breeze. It does everything for you. You just stick the disc in and 2 minutes later, you are online.

That said, it terms of use, any Apple product usually works out of the box without tinkering.

 

[Ichinisan]

...supported by my experience with DD-WRT on my Linksys WRT54G v4. It's absolutely rock-solid.

 

[Ichinisan]

Have you tried the newer N products? I just got a Linksys e3200. It's wireless N is pretty fast. Usually I have issues with wireless, but it was pretty flawless. Also, installation was a breeze. It does everything for you. You just stick the disc in and 2 minutes later, you are online.

That said, it terms of use, any Apple product usually works out of the box without tinkering.

I wouldn't dream of installing software (bloatware) for a router. I ignore the sticker over the ports because the software is meant to keep the clueless folks from calling the Tech Support line. I've seen lots of cases where the software would only confuse someone because it didn't take certain scenarios into consideration.

The first thing I do with a new router is log-in through the web interface and install the latest firmware, then I configure everything exactly the way I want through the web interface.

 

[KlokWyze]

DD-WRT compatible wireless N router. Done. And read reviews on products. Apple stuff is for people that don't like tinkering with shit, which TBH is quite annoying sometimes.

 

[Beev]

/shrug

Don't know what to tell you, OP. My eight year old Linksys router can stream a 1080p blu ray rip through the PS3 Media Server encoder wirelessly to my PS3 without so much as a stutter.

 

[brblx]

DD-WRT is the shiz. but not free anymore, is it? i still have an old copy on a linksys router that i use as a bridge for my xbox.

 

[Aikouka]

My Netgear WNDR3700 works great, but it wasn't cheap.

 

[kaioshade]

There are cheap routers and good routers. The airport extreme routers are very solid products. However i also got extremely good performance from an old wrt54g using tomato. The main reason i got an airport extreme was i got it for free from work. Not one single problem with it.

But buy cheap routers, you are going to get cheap performance. Not taking third party firmwares into consideration.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Every router I ever had crapped out after a few years. :shrug:

My Airport base station is going on four years old. It started overheating a few months ago, but it's fine as long as I don't set my DSL modem on top of it. (I actually just use it as a WAP and switch, since the DSL modem does routing/NAT duty.

Eventually, it too will die, and I will buy another cheap router to replace it. (I don't need USB disk support anymore, since I took the NAS plunge.) That one will probably also last a 2-4 years and die.

Way of all things.

 

[Aikouka]

Eventually, it too will die, and I will buy another cheap router to replace it. (I don't need USB disk support anymore, since I took the NAS plunge.) That one will probably also last a 2-4 years and die.

Way of all things.

I kind of agree with others on the subject of cheap routers. I've always had pretty bad luck if I paid below $80-100 on a router.

 

[KeithP]

Oh boy, another Apple topic.

Breaking out the popcorn and chair...

I wonder these things keep popping up in the "All Things Apple" forum? Oh well.

-KeithP


Oops...I see. Didn't realize it was a moved thread. My apologies.

 

[Ichinisan]

I wonder these things keep popping up in the "All Things Apple" forum? Oh well.

-KeithP

It was moved to this forum after that comment was posted.

 

[Tyranicus]

DD-WRT compatible wireless N router. Done. And read reviews on products. Apple stuff is for people that don't like tinkering with shit, which TBH is quite annoying sometimes.

You don't need to tinker with an Apple router, but the AirPort Utility includes a lot of advanced functionality.

 

[alent1234]

I've been having a hell of a time with my network (partially wired, some N) and have been pulling my hair out - 3 routers ranging from $30 to $100 and they've all choked when torrenting and streaming HD 720p mkvs via ethernet.... Really hell of a hard time getting this all to work properly so I just got frustrated and bought an $80 refurb airport extreme....


FLAWLESS... Everything's flawless. Fastest N local file transferring I've experienced and the nothing's choppy at all. I've experienced this before with my iMac as well - everything just works, no need to tinker and no frustrating trial and error troubleshooting. I think I'm finally converted and may ditch my android phone that forcecloses too often and get an iPhone..

How do they continue to have this sort of straight forward stability across product lines? I figured a company that specializes in networking like Linksys, netgear, and belkin would work but all those routers are in the trash while my apple router feels so swank - hell, it has a guest network! and printer sharing's so simple! Not flame bait but really beginning to think that the premium price is due to superior engineering, R&D, and software design, not some pretentious "iSheep tax."

the latest versions of apple products use broadcom wifi chips and are able to take advantage of features that broadcom put in there

 

[taltamir]

I've been having a hell of a time with my network (partially wired, some N) and have been pulling my hair out - 3 routers ranging from $30 to $100
...
Linksys, netgear, and belkin

which were the 30$ and which was 100$?

Personally I find linksys & belkin suck. Netgear is so so... D-Link is fairly good.

 

[slackerinabox]

I kind of agree with others on the subject of cheap routers. I've always had pretty bad luck if I paid below $80-100 on a router.

Some of the routers that I've used were $100 cost but usually retailed for a bit more (I'm big on buying refurbs). I've used dualband simultaneous routers (.11n), ddrt hacked routers (the classic linksys wrt54g), and some very well reviewed belkins - all would crap out when torrenting and streaming HD video through my media server at the same time, most requiring (at least) weekly reboots. The nicest thing about my airport extreme is the computer to computer transfer speeds, even on wifi. Shockingly consistent, almost as fast as wired!

 

[taltamir]

all would crap out when torrenting and streaming HD video through my media server at the same time, most requiring (at least) weekly reboots.

Reoccuring reboots are a sign of defective hardware. Routers typically get that way rather frequently as they tend to run too hot. Proper ventilation is key in preserving your router. Also avoid refurbished routers and take some load off their processor by connecting all wired computers via a dumb switch.

The nicest thing about my airport extreme is the computer to computer transfer speeds, even on wifi. Shockingly consistent, almost as fast as wired!

The absolute max theoretical speed of a wireless n with all the bells and whistles is 150 mbps. Realisitically you will be lucky to get 2/3 of that speed.

Gigabit ethernet gives you 1 gbps simultaneously per direction (so, 2gpbs bi-drectional speed) and predates wireless n by 10 years. wireless n was ratified Oct 2009 and gigE in 1999.
GigE has been standard in every motherboard for the last 3-4 years or so while wireless n for less than a year. There is also 10 gpbs ethernet (requires cat6) which is still expensive and non ubiquitous today, despite being out since 2002

the above speeds are in bits. A modern HDD can easily read/write 100+ MiB/s which is 800 mbps. Not SSDs, HDD. Good ones do over 120 which would max out gigE.

So, not only is your wireless n NOT as fast as wired. It limits you to nearly 1/10th the speed you could get with gigE. Not only that, you lose out jumbo frames (slower connection, much higher CPU usage), have interference slow you down further, have higher CPU usages (for wireless in general, stacks with loss of jumbo frames), higher power consumption, security concerns, it takes longer for your OS to establish the connection, and it requires manual configurations (mess with passwords and the like when with wired its plug it and it works)

The speed isn't noticeably different when you stream a movie... but try copying a file and you will notice immediately that it is 10 times slower

I would accept your claims that their router is rock solid, but don't give me that nonsense about wireless as fast as wired.