What can Airport do that Express can't?

mindbend

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Tomorrow I'm going to the Apple store to grab either an Airport or Airport Express. I want to know if I even need the larger version.

My setup is a small office with five Macs connected to a hub for our LAN. Right now I'm stringing an ethernet cable out to the iBook, which is stupid. All I want to do is be able to connect my existing, Airport-ready, iBook to our LAN wireless-ly. And I want to prepare for the near future when we get another laptop.

So, basically, I want to connect two laptops to our LAN wireless-ly. Is Airport Express enough for that?

I do not wish to go wireless with any of the other machines, as I need the speed and plan to go even faster with Gigabit.

Thanks.
 
Airport Express only supports 10 connections. Airport Extreme is well over 100 connections.

Airport Express has one ethernet connection for plugging into network. Extreme has two, and external and internal network connection, so you can use it as a network bridge.

Airport Extreme is available with a built-in modem.
 
But Airport Express has audio out over network stream.
And I am not sure, but does Airport Extreme also have a printserver over usb?
And I think I heard that the Airport Extreme has a higher signal strength or at least this is expected..
If price matters and audio streaming ain't really important, I would go for a third-party router such as netgear or d-link..
 
Print Server: both Express & Extreme.
Access Point: Express (10 clients), Extreme (50 clients)
WDS: both Express & Extreme.
Audio Streaming: Express only.
WAN connection (for connecting to an ADSL or Cable Modem or Existing Network.): Express and Extreme
LAN connection (for connecting Wired Machines to the AirPort Network): Extreme only
NAT & DHCP (for sharing a single Internet Connection with the rest of the AirPort Network): Extreme (maybe Express, not sure)
External Network (for boosting Range): Extreme only
 
apple's marketing on the product centers around spreading audio throughout your house, with software so you can choose which room you want to have your iTunes playing in (there's a screen shot of a window where the user can choose "living room", "kitchen", etc.)

They have added other features, it seems, to make it attractive to audiophiles and technophiles alike.
 
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