| Apple AirPort Express with Air Tunes (M9470LL/A) |
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Model: M9470LL/A
Brand: Apple
Manufacturer: Apple Computer
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 299
Platforms: Windows
Operating system: Windows & Macintosh
Form factor: External
Hardware platform: PC
Data link protocol: IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
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| Features: |
Enjoy your iTunes music library in virtually any room of your house
Share a single broadband Internet connection and USB printer without inconvenient and obtrusive cables
Create an instant wireless network on the go
Access an AirPort Express wireless network
Compatible with Windows XP or 2000; Mac OS X v10.2.7 or later |
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| Description: |
| Apple M9470LL/A AirPort Express Base Station - The AirPort Express is a very unique wireless base station. It fits in the palm of your hand, plugs directly into a wall outlet, and allows you to wirelessly connect to the Internet, print, and stream iTunes music to any room in your home. It does this via 3 bult-in ports. A WAN Ethernet port for your cable or DSL modem, a USB port for your printer, and an Audio port for your home stereo. Security - Built-in Firewall, Password Protection, Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) Support, & 128-bit WEP Encryption Supports up to 10 users NOTE - Wireless printing over USB requires Mac OS X v10.2.7 or later or Windows XP or Windows 2000 and a compatible printer NOTE - AirPort Extreme and AirPort Express can extend the range only of an AirPort Extreme or AirPort Express wireless network |
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| User Reviews (299 total): |
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Excellent product for Mac and Windows, August 29, 2005
By Mac Convert (Colorado, USA)
True plug and play setup. Plug it in, bring up Mac airport setup and within a minute you are ready to go. Use it to support two mac minis, one powerbook G4 and two windows machines. Works like a charm. Small enough to travel with. Profile setup allows you to move this unit and have multiple configurations.
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Airport express, August 26, 2005
By William J. Lamb
I bought this product to assist me with my wireless internet set-up in my home. It works well with my Apple notebook G-5. Not only does it boost with wireless signal to my second floor of my house, it allows me to play my music from my notebook through my stereo.
This product is worth the money nad has helped make my wirelss set-up work well.
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Does it include the warranty?, August 22, 2005
By Martha L. Vallejo
Before buying the product, I wanted to be absolutely sure If when I purchase this product, I am also buying the warranty and the receipt which will be helpful in the future for any changes or claims to the apple store.
This information will be very helpful to me. Please answer to email, (...)
Thank you,
Laura Gutierrez
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Fabulouuuuuussssss!, August 19, 2005
By Herr Chef-san (Napa Valley, CA)
I use one in the living room with the DSL plugged in; one in the back office, just to broaden the net; and one in the yard, so I can surf from anywhere. They are brilliant little boxes, pack up super easy, and are very robust.
I had classes in England this summer and so I just snappped a UK power adapter on the end and plugged it into the school network. Poof! Immediate wireless network. And it's smaller than three CD's! Plug in a USB printer and its wireless printing happiness, plug in a stereo and you've got music everywhere. I love these little things. Great product.
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Neat stuff in a small package..., August 11, 2005
By Ron Malinowski, Jr. (Streamwood, IL USA)
Status light is too bright but useful visual, can easily put tape over it so it doesn't light the room up, also tends to fall out of outlet because its a heavy lopsided unit with fold out prongs. These were my immediate complaints, but the sound quality is awesome. And with a program called Airfoils, you can stream any sounds from Apple through it, not just iTunes. so I can stream WGN radio from real player or sounds from DVD player into a stereo wirelessly, and the sound quality is excellent. If you can plug this in an outlet strip or something higher in the room, the range would be good to cover a home. but most outlets are at ground level, and I found the range was worse then my dlink that has a small external antenna, Im happy with the product, has a special purpose, if you are not going to use it as a wireless router, music streaming and print server, your better off buying individual items to accomplish what your after. If you want an all in one package and you printer will be near your stereo, and its centrally locted in your home to use a wireless router, then this is perfect.
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This does not work--I have 2 of them, August 6, 2005
By Barry (California)
I love apples, but I warn you not to buy this product. I bought 2 for 2 differnet ibooks in 2 different locations. The wireless worked fine for the first 6 months, but has stopped. The problem is most likely in the software, since the problem happened in both systems. There is an Apple discussion board on-line through Apple that has over 500 posts discussing this issue. Apparently Apple has no idea about how to fix it. So, save your money and don't buy this product. I wish it would work--but it does not.
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Did Microsoft really make this thing?, August 5, 2005
By L. A. Shantz
I bought it to just stream music from a PC via a wifi-g network to the home stereo. Install was a mess. It wouldn't work with any SSID name other than the factory default no matter what. We'd get it up & working, change the SSID and for all it knew, it was at the bottom of the Pacific. It also won't work with the WEP enabled. If you're worried about security & have a Cisco Linksys WRT54G, this is not for you. The MAC address system at least works.
Further, the wirelss network crashes every couple weeks now, something it never used to do. I don't know why, so I can't say for sure it's the AirPort's fault, but it never did this prior to its install, and it started doing it right after we put it on.
Would I buy it knowing what I know now? No. When it does want to work, it does an okay job. But given what Apple charges, I'm not longer in a hurry to shift to one of their computers.
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I Love Macs but..., August 2, 2005
By Ken (Granite Bay, California)
Some of Apple's Airport products don't always work as advertised. If you go to Apple's support pages, and review the discussion groups, you will find dozens of people who have connetion problems with this product looking for solutions. I have an Airport Network at home and am running all the latest software, and just wanted to extend the range of my network a little bit for convenience. No matter what I did, the Airport Express unit would not connect to the Airport Network I already had up and running and none of the utility applications would work either. I sent the Airport Express back for a refund. I'm sure they work for most people, but they sure don't work for everyone all the time. Your experience could be better, but mine was not good.
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We've gone wireless, August 2, 2005
By Ray Freeman (Santa Barbara)
This purchase completed the wireless zone(s) for our 1928 Spanish revival house. We had previously installed an Airport Extreme and an Airport Express but needed some extra boost in one wing. This unit did it, simply and inconspicuously.
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Windows Users Heed The Advice From The Star Review., July 11, 2005
By M. Small (Angel, UK)
The setup wizard software is useless if you're a typical Windows user who already has everything setup and just wish to add this to your network to allow you control your stereo remotely. Go by what was written by the star reviewer and you'll have it up and working in 5 minutes (well, in reality, 30 minutes). And once you get it up and working it's like typical Apple gear...brilliant, if a little expensive for what it is.
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Don't count on it!, July 11, 2005
By J. Ash (Tampa,FL)
I purchased the product and was forced to return it due to network connectivity issues. Unfortunately this device appears to lose the wireless connection and will reset far too often to be considered a viable means of sending music from one room to another. Also the installation documentation is not as clear as possible. I had to scour the Internet to find out that regardless of your wireless configuration, the airport MUST initially be hooked up to your router via ethernet cable. If this step is missed, a wireless connection will never happen.
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Airport express use it almost everyday!, July 7, 2005
By prasad W (Edgewater, NJ United States)
I love this product, I use it almost everyday, an appliance that fits perfectly with my setup at home. I expected a tougher time setting it up - but there was nothing to it.
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Pure Genius, June 22, 2005
By unknown
Airport is awesome. Instead of having the music from itunes come out from the speakers in the computer, it comes out through the speakers of your stero so you really get the full effect. It also helps because you can take your laptop other places in your home and still get internet access. Some downsides are that if you're not a total mac wiz you will get confused, a lot. I hope you have applecare! I'm not going to go into all the tiny problems with it but be prepared to put on your thinking cap!! It may seem kind of expensive, but believe me, it's worth it.
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AWESOME!!!! (Windows User), June 22, 2005
By A. Pena (South Riding, Virginia United States)
I was looking for a wireless connection to my Home Theater receiver with digital output. This product is excellent. The directions for installing on Windows are not the best, but I still give it 5 stars because this product is really good. It can act as a router, providing wireless access to a wired network or internet connection, but can also act as a host on an existing network.
TIP: I couldn't restore factory settings (I bought an open box item) unless I plugged the unit WHILE pushing the reset button and keeping it pushed for 5 seconds. The manual only says push it for 5 secs, but didn't work for me.
ANOTHER TIP: Windows users, as the prev. review explained, configure the unit by connecting to with a cable, then go wireless.
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Air Tunes Rock, June 15, 2005
By D. Wyatt
The Apple Airport Express is a dream, even with my PC. I purchased a USB 802.11 b/g adaptor, plugged that into my PC, that was on line in about 3 minutes. Loaded the Apple Network assistant, plugged in the Airport Express and 5 minutes later it was transmitting fully digital tunes to my stereo system in the next room. The amasing thing is that my wired LAN and DSL are still working at the same time that Itunes is transmitting to the Airport. Who wudda thunk!
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Excellent Product -- Shame on Windows Networking, June 10, 2005
By Alexander Hulpke (Ft. Collins, CO, USA, Earth)
I have a rather heterogeneous wireless network: A PowerBook (running Tiger), A WinTel PC (running XP), A wireless router/DSL modem from the phone company.
Setting up the Airport Express on the Mac was trivial -- it recognized the other network and let me import the existing wireless and security settings. Everything was up and running in 5 minutes.
Setting up printing from WinXP was initially unfruitful, mainly since Windows insists on you making decisions about ports, device types etc. without explaining what things mean or what effect a choice has. (I was trying to follow the Apple instructions, but at one step there was a long pull-down menu they did not mention.) The so-called ``windows troubleshoooter'' was of no avail.
(...) Installation of this was very easy, instructions very clear, including on how to pierce the firewall and it set up the printer with 5 mouseclicks.
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Not a painless experience on XP, but I got it to work..., May 27, 2005
By P. Summersgill (San Rafael, CA USA)
Well, now I'm impressed. It took a while, but I'm there. I can now play music from my computer on iTunes via my stereo, which is rooms away. I'm very happy with this development, so the Airport Express gets 4 stars for its functionality. The experience installing it would get less, if I could split that out somehow.
Everywhere I looked, it said it was easy. It wasn't. I won't say it was hard, just full of guesswork because of the ambiguity of the instructions. The complaints about Apple's documentation in this section are not exaggerated. If you're on Windows XP, the kind soul who wrote the spotlight review on adding the AirPort Express to an existing wireless network deserves major kudos - and perhaps a bottle of wine. Perhaps a case.
It's really amazing how this has been neglected. There's very little reference to your course of action if you have an existing wireless network in Apple's documentation for the AirPort Express. There are two accompanying PDF files (48 and 58 pages in length) on the installation CD that ignore the issue completely, as near as I can tell. One of them is called "Airport Networks for Windows."
The end result is that it's actually easier to pull together a secure home network on Windows XP than it is to add an AirPort Express to that network. That's right, you heard me Mac elitists (and I used to be one of you). I'm also a little disappointed that the cabling didn't come with the unit, cost an extra $40 and includes two cables that I'll likely never use.
Don't believe what a few reviews in this space have said about needing to turn off your firewall. Mine is up and running, and the AirPort Express is fine on my network.
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Nice hardware, but terrible software and documentation, May 25, 2005
By milivoj_i (CH)
A small wireless access point with the power plug directly attached to it, and an audio-out port to connect to a stereo. That looked exactly like what I wanted.
Well, it turns out to be quite different from what I expected, and very disappointing.
1. First, you may want to know what this device actually is. The lengthy "manufacturer description" will tell you it is "Driving the Wi-Fi Revolution" and that "AirTunes Unleashes Your Music", but after reading all that advertising crap, you may still be wondering if it is an access point or a router, and how the audio feature actually works. For whatever reason, I assumed it would be a simple access point, and it would be easy to connect it to my existing network. Well, after a lot of research, it is still not completely clear. It does work as a router, but as far as I can tell, it will only work as an access point or range extender with another AirPort base station, in some proprietary mode. If used in an existing wireless network (in "client mode"), the Ethernet port is disabled.
2. You cannot configure this router through a standard Web interface like all other routers (no telnet either, of course). You must first install a proprietary software for configuration. (Which incidentally also means you cannot configure it from a Linux or other machine. It is Mac or Windows only).
(...)
4. You MUST use iTunes to stream music to the AirPort. If you don't like the iTunes player, you are out of luck. iTunes streams a proprietary format to the device ("Apple Lossless Encoding"), which no other player can do.
5. You must disable any firewall (the Windows XP default firewall or any third party firewall you may have) to enable iTunes to see the AirPort!
So my conclusion would be:
(...)
- If you just wanted a wireless router, there is a huge choice of excellent and cheaper routers, which are easy to set up and require nothing other than your current web browser.
- If you want a small router to take with you around the world and don't mind disabling your firewall, this compact device may be perfect for you.
The hardware design is indeed very nice: the unit is very small, and the power plug is directly attached to it, but removable. This means you can change the power plug for one adapted to the country you are in. Better yet: if you don't have the right Apple power plug for your country, you can just remove it and use a standard 2-pin power cord, the same type that is used for any non-grounded electronics device.
Too bad they put such crappy software into such a nice hardware, and serve it with completely useless documentation.
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(Almost) perfect home appliance., May 17, 2005
By Francois Rouaix (Seattle, WA)
It doesn't get any simpler than that. Plug to the stereo, plug your printer. It works (at least in a Mac environment).
The defects:
1- The USB connector is way too close to the audio connector. If you use a monster cable with an L-shaped plug, or presumably any other cable with a big plug, you'll end up with the USB connector and the audio plug competing for space and creating pressure.
2- Plugging to the wall? I've not been too happy with plugging the device to a wall socket (okay, so my wall sockets are poor).
The wish:
I wish I could also connect hard drives on this device.
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A little help for those who don't speak Apple, May 3, 2005
By Big Balla' #55 (Georgia)
I love my AirPort Express, now that it works... I had problems from the beginning of setup with the Apple Software. I followed the excellent advice from the first spotlight reviewer, and my AirPort was now a part of my wireless network. I had a little more trouble with my printer. I have an HP Photosmart 7760 (great printer, by the way) and it is "not supported" for use with an AirPort Express per HP. But not being easily deterred, I searched the net for a solution. I found these two sites which greatly help those whose printer is "not supported" or easily installed for whatever reason.
To print from a Windows XP computer to a printer on an AirPort base station, go to http://www.efelix.co.uk/tech/1004.html and follow the directions. It's a great site with pictures and step-by-step instructions.
If your printer driver is not found or supported, go to http://www.efelix.co.uk/tech/1012.html and follow the directions. This site also has pictures and step-by-step instructions.
I hope this is helpful and removes a little of the stress of setting up your AirPort on a Windows XP computer.
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