Customer Ratings & Reviews

Apple rarely disappoints and always works as advertised and the Airport Extreme is no different. I bought 3 Geek Squad Refurbished units and the only criticism I can give is that unlike Apple's Refurbished units, the Geek Squad units were all scratched, some were smudged, and all were covered in gobs of adhesive from what I assume had been large stickers on the sides of the units. That's the bad. The Good is that those issues are all cosmetic. They actually work just fine. I'll forgo the usual boring review & reveal a trick/ hidden menu & features I found along my recommendations for who should buy this router & who should not. Bsdically, it's the ideal router to buy for your college student (I'll explain why) among other types of consumers & home networking situations. But first, the hidden menu. In the Apple Airport Utility screen, you can hold down the 'alt' key while you click "Edit" in the Utility window to get detailed information about each of the devices connected to the network. You will see a list of your wireless clients (connected devices) either by their customized names (if you've done so), product name, or their individual IP address. Each device has a triangle icon that is a drop-down menu which when clicked, gives information on IP address, MAC address, quality of connection, data rare (connection speed), RSSI, and the PHY Mode (802.11ac or n or b or g, etc.). It is very handy. Most users don't know this hidden menu exists or that the Airport Extreme can even give you this information. I also can attest to IPV6 working beautifully on my network. Your ISP & cable modem both must support & connect to IPV6 in order to justify enabling it on the Apple Extreme, but mine did (I used a common IPV6 test site that you can find online) and my Apple Extreme has been seamlessly connecting to IPV6 sites ever since. I live in a congested area of condo living where we not only have numerous overlapping networks but also a glut of Comcast Xfinity gateways hosting xfinitywifi hotspots for general use. The Apple Extreme operating on the 5GHz weather bands has been an advantage I won't soon give up. The Extreme is actually an AC1750 router (most people don't know that) and despite lacking QoS, beamforming antennae, MU-MIMO, mesh, and some other of the newer features routers now flaunt, it holds its own against higher ac routers double or triple that - even the new Velop. In tests for throughput in small to mid-sized homes the Apple Extreme only starts to lag behind where these routers like Google wifi, Linksys Velop, etc., are engaging mesh & MU-MIMO to cover large areas and hard-to-reach corners. If you don't live in a McMansion & want excellent 4K streaming speeds, the Apple Extreme is an excellent choice. If you are a gamer in a 5,000-15,000 sqft home with 20 wireless clients, then you should be buying the Nighthawk X10 or the Asus. Despite Apple seemingly turning their attention away from home networking, the Apple Airport Extreme is still an absolutely solid router - no fuss, no muss - for those people who aren't looking to flash DDWRT or customize their router in the same way phones & srreaming boxes are jailbroken and for anyone who wants to buy a solid router they know will work out of the box with few if any limitations and little to no intervention or networking knowledge needed. It's also the IDEAL router for your college student who needs solid performance, plug & play setup, excellent manufacturer support, and can work well in extremely congested high traffic areas like apartments, dorms, & campus living.

I used old AirPort Extreme for years and never had problems connecting 3 iPhones, 1 iPad, 1 Mac, 3 PCs, 1 Samsung TV, Apple TV 3, Wii, PS3 So, when I saw this deal $99 for New Generation AirPort Extreme I could not resist and bought it on-line and choose to deliver it to local Best Buy. Router was Refurbished by Best Buy Geek squad. The only thing I found is small, hardly noticeable nick on top. Probably router was damaged during shipping or maybe fall down. Either way, it works just like it should. And I noticed significant increase in speed. For example WD My Cloud Network server now works twice faster. Three persons can stream movies on different devises simultaneously with no problems. Setup was easy, just like everything Apple. Couple seconds and you in business. Yes, I could buy the same refurbished router on eBay, but prefer local store, since I can inspect and return it if necessary.

This router is easy to setup, fast and good performance, I will buy another one

I tested my Wii fi extension and it kept me connected one and a half blocks away

I bought this for two reasons: to extend my existing Wi-Fi network and to add 802.11ac. Because my primary router is the 3rd generation Apple Airport Extreme, this 5th generation would play nicely when extending its Wi-Fi via Apple's Airport Utility. This generation has been redesigned to be a vertical-standing tower with more antennas and more output power. I did notice better signal strength on my existing devices that were on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz 802.11n networks. While the 802.11ac network met expectations for speed, I was surprised that with beam-forming (it's in the 802.11ac specification, and intended to direct the wireless signal for better connection), its range is not noticeably better than 5 GHz 802.11n (which does not use beam-forming, as I understand). If centrally located in a small single-family home, this would work well as a single router. It is easy to set up and administer, but that's if you use a Mac, which has the Airport Utility bundled in the OS. A scaled-down version of Airport Utility is available as an iOS app, but the desktop version is required to set up the first time. Since there's no web interface to administer an Airport Extreme, you have to install Airport Utility on a Windows PC, which I wouldn't recommend if you're PC-only. Linux users are also out of luck. However, once set up, the router works fine connecting to Linux, Windows, and Android devices (as it should!). I had reservations about buying a refurbished unit, but the one I received had no scratches or blemishes, and operates (to my unprofessional eye) like it were new. (FYI, for anyone also wants to extend their network with two Airport routers: in Airport Utility, the option to "extend an existing network" means to turn the second router into a wireless repeater, which can cut speeds by as much as 50%. Because I could run Cat 6 Ethernet cable between the two routers, I wanted to turn the second router into an access point, which is the "create a new network" option that requires you to enter all the SSID and password info to match that of the first router.)

A local audio/video boutique recommended this as their wireless router of choice when they do custom high-end AV system installs because of it's stability, strong signal, reliability, and ease-of-et-up. They were right on all counts. Be aware this comes in that Ugly Apple Hospital White color.....it sticks out like a sore thumb located amongst all my black AV gear where it is located. Atheistically, it looks like it belongs in an emergency room. I'm thinking of either spray-painting it, or, covering it with a black sock. This is a $200-ish item, and previously I have spent $50-$75 for a wireless router, so, I made a big step up in price but it makes a marked difference in performance. Great signal strength, especially in horizontal directions. I now have no trouble with break-up or freeze-up of streaming HD video from Netflix, even when streaming on multiple devices. I pay for 16 Mbps from my cable company but my old Belkin wireless router only provided about 8 Mbps to wireless devices around my house....though the back panel Ethernet connections did pass a 16 Mbps signal to hard-wired devices. And, about every 2-4 weeks, I'd notice very slow internet speeds around the house...I would do an online speed test, and find I was getting only around 2 Mbps speed. I would need to un-plug and re-plug the electric connection to the Belkin to regain the regular 16/8 service. With this Apple Airport Extreme, I have had no deterioration in signal quality or internet speed, and, has not needed a reboot. I bought mine as a Geek Squad refurbished item, and it looks and work like new, but the Geeks forgot to include instructions....but I easily found them online. Great performance, easy set-up, stable operation. Just beware of its stark, medical-clinic white color.

I've used Apple AirPorts since the first generation of devices and have always found them easy to install and maintain. This is my third AirPort Extreme AC that I've installed. In truth, it's overkill. The other two provide more than adequate coverage, especially for N-Band devices. Mainly I want to provide a stronger signal for AC coverage so that I can utilize U-Verse gigabit internet more effectively. Newer AC devices seem to connect to the AC band easier and maintain a better throughput speed than older devices that are also using AC. I expect this to a degree, but was surprised to the extent I found it to be true. Primarily I've used Apples hardware because of ease of use and seamless integration with their products. Would highly recommend.

bought this because i wanted ac speed and better range. i have it set up in our basement along with the cable modem and switch. on the first floor, i can connect on the 5ghz band and speed is tremendous. consistently 100+mbs (i have comcast blast). on the second floor i can connect on the 5ghz band but only get 1 bar. speed goes down to about 40mbs. i can also get full bars on the 2.4ghz band but the speed isn't as high as even one bar on the 5ghz range. i was hoping the beam forming would give me better connections on the third floor but maybe i'm just asking too much! admin of the router is super easy.

I purchased the new 2TB Time Capsule the first day it arrived in the Apple stores. Set up was quite easy, even though I had existing routers on my network. The airport utility on my Mac instantly found the time capsule and proceeded to set it up. The first backup took most of the night to complete. I previously used a USB2 Hard drive to do my backups, and I knew that backing up over a network would be slower than a USB device, but I was surprised by how slow it was. Incremental backups seem to take about 10 minutes, where my USB drive was typically less than a minute. It seems to take some time to find the hard drive on the network, and then prepare the backup for download to the TC. However, I no longer have to keep my USB drive plugged in, and remember to properly dismount it each time I take my Mac on the road, so all in all I'm happy to live with the trade off of slower backups against the benefit of never having to remember to connect/disconnect my hard drive to accomplish a backup. Overall I'm very pleased and would recommend the TC for anyone who wants a simple set and forget backup solution. It also seems to function quite well as an access point, with a very strong signal even when I'm on the third floor of my house and the TC is on the first floor.

I recently upgraded to this Airport Extreme from the previous generation in hopes of stronger signal and a little bump in speed. Although refurbished, item functions like new. A few lights scuffs are present. Very easy to setup. Overall performance has been great and with the AC wireless, a few of my devices seem a bit more solid and faster.

Great router, that was easier to set up, good speed and range. Has a lot of features for those interested in that, but just as easy to operate for those just interested in a router that's easy to set up and operate without worrying about it.

Pretty easy to setup using my MacBook Pro. I like the fact I can not broadcast my SID so everyone in the neighborhood can see. The range and speed is good. I have it located in the center of my house. I have my external WD drive hooked up to the USB and use Time Machine to backup my MacBook Pro wirelessly....The first backup wirelessly takes a while so be patient. I can see every device connected to my Airport Extreme which is good. Very intuitive, easy to setup and looks nice sitting on the shelf.

I had the previous extreme. So getting this was an easy choice. The old one just wasn't reliable anymore, so I decided to bite the bullet and get a new one. It was worth it. As always, the setup wax pretty easy. I just had to plug in all of the passwords and numbers of the local one. I wish there was a way of saving and importing the settings from an old extreme to an old one though. They made one large improvement in this one. The power cable is just a straight cable now. No gig power block in the line for my cat to knock off (again).

I upgraded an old AirPort Express Base Station with this AirPort Extreme, and the speed boost -- especially when streaming high definition content -- is like night and day! The Extreme was very easy to set up and works flawlessly. However, as a Best Buy refurbished product, there were some cosmetic scratches and scuffs on the unit that hasn't affected performance. Compare with Apple's refurbished store, you might get a better looking unit but it didn't beat Best Buy's price.

The router is easy to setup, very fast, rarely needs to be reset, and has a long range. Five Stars

Great, fast and reliable ac router. Only drawback is lack of an updated AirPort utility for Windows. You can customize some features via iPad or iPhone but not as much as with the OSX app or with routers that take custom firmware. But if you want a reliable router that doesn't need to be reset a lot and don't need those features buy this.

This router is amazing. Easy to set up, great range and consistent speeds

The Airport Extreme was a solid buy. It was important for me to upgrade my WIFI because of all the network congestion in my apartment due to the limited bands of older WIFI. After setting it up, my internet was quicker and finally stable. I was really impressed with the ease of use, and I love that I can attach an external hard drive to back up my Macbook over the network.

Easy to use, very fast, and excellent range. Highly recommended.

Arrived in flawless condition, well packaged. This is hands-down the best router on the market. It gets even better with both an iOS device and a Mac running OS X, but it can be configured with a PC as well. I cannot stress enough how easy it is to add multiple base stations including airport expresses and old versions of the extreme to BLANKET your house (and backyard/driveway) with full-strength wifi. And it looks good!