Anybody got the new Apple Airport Extreme 802.11ac -- thoughts?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deleted member 138126
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Deleted member 138126

Deleted member 138126

So I bought one of the new Apple Airport Extreme 802.11ac and I have mixed feelings about it (mainly because of the price). I don't have any 802.11ac devices, so I can't test that aspect of it. So far I haven't noticed anything that different from my previous 2.4GHz-only wifi access point (a Draytek 2820n configured purely as an access point). Coverage seems roughly the same (I have a small house), and performance doesn't seem that much different, although my iPhone 5 (which has 5GHz 802.11n support) does seem quite a bit snappier online.

The main reasons I bought it:

- I'd been wanting a dual 2.4/5 GHz Wifi access point for a while. Wasn't that fussed about 802.11ac as it will still be a couple of years before I probably have any devices that can use it, so I am effectively paying early for the privilege of being an early adopter. But then, if I bought a non-802.11ac device now, I'd just end up buying an 802.11ac down the road anyway, so probably not a bad thing.
- Looking at the iFixit tear down, it's clear that it has been very lovingly designed and made. Everything looks super high quality.
- General consensus on previous generations of the Airport Extreme are that it is extremely stable (never requires a reboot), which I value highly.
- Same price as the Asus RT-AC66U, which has probably got better coverage, but known to have much flakier firmware, and dreadful support (Apple support is second to none).

I still think I made the right decision, I guess it's just a shame I haven't got any immediate sense that it's that much better.

Has anyone bought one and noticed any massive difference? General thoughts?
 
What were you expecting? If you don't have many 5GHz devices then you won't really notice the difference. I bought one because I have an iPad, MacBook Pro, iPhone 5 and they all have 5GHz radios in, and the quality of the connection is fantastic.
 
Caged said:
What were you expecting? If you don't have many 5GHz devices then you won't really notice the difference. I bought one because I have an iPad, MacBook Pro, iPhone 5 and they all have 5GHz radios in, and the quality of the connection is fantastic.
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I have an iPhone 5, and both laptops in the house have 2.4/5 GHz wifi cards in them, but the difference just isn't noticeable.

I guess I would rephrase my original question as more of a statement: in real-world usage, there doesn't seem to be a real need for faster wireless standards. 2.4GHz 802.11n seems sufficient for most cases, and anything faster is not noticeable in normal web browsing/HD movie watching usage.

Obviously if I'm copying large files, then faster is better. But if 2.4GHz 802.11n is sufficient for watching HD movies, and I'm *not* copying large files over wifi on any regular basis, then my need for faster wifi seems diminished.

Just a general observation. Obviously newer/better/faster standards are great, and I'll always be close (if not right on) the bleeding edge. It's just that in this particular case, I haven't really noticed any difference.
 
A couple of additional comments:

- The iPhone 5 seems to favour staying on the existing connection, even if there is a faster/better one available; e.g. if it is already on the 2.4GHz SSID (because the 5GHz was out of range when it connected), if I move into range of the 5GHz SSID the phone stays on the 2.4GHz one.

- My laptop (Dell Latitude 6430U ultrabook with Intel 6205 wifi card) stayed on the 2.4GHz SSID until I changed a setting on the properties of the card to tell it to favour 5GHz connections (the default was no preference).

So again, it seems that real world usage favours staying put, rather than aggressively pursuing the faster connection. Perhaps the 5GHz connections are less stable (less available when you're moving around the house), and therefore devices are tuned to use them if available, but not aggressively roam onto them?

I wonder how much of a factor the wireless access point is? i.e. if I switched to e.g. the Asus, would I see much more aggressive switching?
 
I did some iperf testing from my Latitude 6430U with Intel 6205 card (dual stream, so theoretically capable of 300 Mbps), to a machine plugged in via Gigabit Ethernet, and a couple of meters from the Airport Extreme I got 180 Mbps. Don't know if that's good or not.
 
Gigabit said:
These look good, but in the real world, will 802.11ac really make a huge difference?
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I get the impression that the real-world improvements are incremental, rather than dramatic like the marketing wants you to believe (when has that ever happened before?). =D
 
5GHz doesn't go through walls as well as 2.4GHz, so if you bring a device home that's powered up (like a phone) you'll probably see it stay on 2.4GHz. since it 'sees' that network first.

5GHz is less likely to have interference on the channel because it's less popular, so if the device channel hops due to interference it will probably end up on the 5GHz network.
 
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