Confused. Do I need Airport Express or Extreme?

[supernova]

I have a DSL hookup at the house and I want to add Airport at home so I can use my Macbook other places in the house besides my office.

There is only me, so I don't have a need to hook up lots of computers. I do have a printer fax machine, though.

The ability to hear my iTunes list through my stereo is a intriguing, but not as much as being able to take the laptop outside on a nice day. B-)

So, which one is best for me and what's the difference?

[AlCzervik]

1. i have the original airport extreme that my mac is hoooked up to but we all have

lap tops as well, i would think the express would work for you.
http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/

[moggie]

2. There are various ways

Airport Express is a wireless base station (802.11g, i.e. 54 Mbps). It also has a wired ethernet port to plug into your network, a USB port you can plug a printer into (which will make it available from the network), and a socket for a cable to your hi-fi so you can play music from iTunes (cable not included, if I remember correctly, but it's a standard 3.5mm jack). There are a few things to note about this. Firstly, it has a lousy reputation for reliability: many people find that it fails after 12-18 months from overheating. Secondly, the audio output is available only from iTunes, not other applications which produce sound (such as DVD Player). I think there are third party hacks which will allow you to use it from other apps, but I haven't tried any. I have an Express, but use it only via the wired network, with its wireless turned off. Beware: you may be disappointed with music from iTunes when played over your hi-fi: nearly all of my music was ripped from CD at the default bitrate of 128 kbps, and I find it noticeably inferior to CD when played through reasonably good speakers (and I'm no audiophile). Good enough for earbuds, arguably not good enough for room-filling sound.

Airport Extreme is another base station (802.11n, not yet standardised) from which you may be lucky enough to get twice the wireless throughput of the Express. It doesn't have the audio capability of the Express, but it has wired ethernet ports to hook into your network, and a USB port which can connect to a printer or USB disk drive (to give you network storage).

You don't need to use an Apple base station. Pretty much any vendor's wireless kit will do: I use a Netgear router for my Macbook networking. No problems. If all you need is network connectivity and don't need need printer or disk support or iTunes, you can shop around and get cheaper than Apple.

If you had an Apple desktop (iMac or Mac Pro) too, you could use "Internet sharing" on it: the desktop's wireless capability turned into a wireless router letting your Macbook use the desktop's wired network connection. Unfortunately, though, this doesn't support decent encryption (WPA), only WEP, which is easily cracked (so a neighbour could snoop on your traffic or leach off your broadband connection).

[TommyO]

3. If you want to stick with Apple products

The Airport Express, the Airport Extreme, or the new Time Capsule will work well.

The Airport Express and Time Capsule will be faster, but you'll still be limited by your DSL connection more than anything else.

If you're running Leopard and want to back up your MacBook using Time Machine, the new Time Capsule would kill two birds with one device.

[moggie]

5. You got that backwards

Airport Extreme is faster than Airport Express (802.11n vs 802.11g).

[Bongo Prophet]

4. I would get the express - least expensive, and the printer/stereo ports are great.

I bought a refurb through apple ($80US) 4 years ago, and it has worked quite well for us. Printer is hooked up, so we can turn off the imac that used to be print server (quieter, less energy.) And we like playing from any computer's itunes to our stereo.

The range has been fine, limitations are often on the computer side (your laptop's built in antenna) - older powerbooks get less range than newer macbooks.
Check out their refurb page- they often have them for ~$70.

Now, the time capsule is waay nice, and if you have a network to back up it os pretty sweet- but it sounds like you could go express and be well served.
Good luck in your decision, supernova!

Here is a link to apple's comparison page.
http://www.apple.com/wifi/