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Apple (AIRPORT EXPRESS) ConnectorNow you can enjoy your iTunes® library anywhere your den, your kitchen, even a friend's house with no wires connecting your...
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Now you can enjoy your iTunes® library anywhere your den, your kitchen, even a friend's house with no wires connecting your computer to your speakers! The AirPort Express is a portable, wireless base station equipped with AirTunes. This technology enables the iTunes software on your AirPort- or Wi-Fi®-equipped desktop or laptop computer to detect every AirPort Express in the house and send music to whichever room you choose, wirelessly! Just plug the extremely portable AirPort Express into a power outlet, and connect it to a stereo system or pair of powered speakers.
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0 Review from Shopping.com
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Regret buying it
| Author's Rating: |
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Pros: Design is attractive. Purchased telephone support is helpful & thorough.
Cons: Sound cuts out frequently. Only plays via iTunes. Expensive. Setup troubleshooting is not fully documented.
The Bottom Line:
I recommend that you consider alternative products. This one has many limitations and may only work intermittently.
I've had an Airport Express for about 10 months. I regret buying it for a number of reasons. First of all, I find that it frequently cuts out on me. I don't know why. All attempts to improve its throughput have failed. Some days it will play without fail for hours, but increasingly, I find that it will cut in and out endlessly for no apparent reason. I noticed that it will cut out when my microwave oven is in use, so perhaps the increase is because of more wireless devices in my neighborhood. Whatever the reason, it's becoming increasingly unusable.
Secondly, after changing my wireless network security, I had trouble configuring the device. Somehow, the process didn't go according to the instructions, and I ended up having to purchase help from Apple. The help resulted in success, but the techniques they had me use to correct the problem were not listed in any troubleshooting documentation. If they had been documented, I likely would have saved the $60 support fee.
Finally, I've noticed that other devices on the market will wirelessly transmit any sounds from a laptop. Airport Express only transmits sound from iTunes. I thought that this would not be too great an inconvenience, but since then YouTube and other multimedia web content have become a bigger share of my computer time, and radio services like Pandora have also caught my eye. If I was searching for a device like the Airport Express today, I would be certain to avoid purchasing a device that only supported iTunes.
I do not recommend this product.
UPDATE: Okay, so I recently got a new computer so I went to try and install the Airport software. I can't find the CD, but that should be okay b/c surely I can get the utilities from apple.com, right? WRONG! I don't really understand why, but Apple seems to make a point of not enabling downloads of certain software utilities that ARE REQUIRED to enable your Apple hardware. Maybe they are trying to make a fortune from selling replacement CDs. Whatever the reason, I've never seen any hardware company that didn't make drivers highly available before. I figured it must be a mistake, so I looked on the apple forums and, yup, that's what they're doing alright. THIS APPLE IS ROTTEN.
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