Music whererver you want it (Apple Airport Express Base Station with 802.11n and AirTunes)

Member Name: Pharmtastic

Product:	Apple Airport Express Base Station with 802.11n and AirTunes
Date:	17/10/08 (172 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Moves music from PC to living room

Disadvantages: -

The Apple AirPort Express is an interesting bit of kit. It's a wireless device that you can use in one of three ways [or, in fact, in all three ways].

It can create a wireless network to allow your desktop, laptop, wii, PSP etc to talk to each other. It doesn't have a built in modem, so won't connect directly to the internet, but it does have an ethernet port and so could be used with a modem to connect the network to the internet.

However, I think the interesting things come when you use it as a receiver. It has a USB port, into which you could plug a USB printer. This then makes you printer usable from any machine in the house, without having to have a dedicated network printer.

The reason I got one, though, is because it comes with a piece of software called AirTunes. This allows it to receive music streamed from any desktop or laptop [Windows or Mac] which has iTunes on it. The Express has a music output port: this allows you to use a cable to connect it to your hi-fi system and play any music that's on your iTunes library through your stereo system. This will almost certainly sound better than using anything other than the most expensive iPod speaker set up.

One cool feature is that you don't actually need an iPod for this to work: iTunes is available free to download. I realise that buying music from iTunes isn't necessarily the cheapest way to go, but I've just loaded all of my CD collection onto the laptop myself.

Cool feature no 2 is that if you do have an iPhone [I don't] or an iPod Touch [I do], you can use either of these as a wi-fi remote control from anywhere in range of the network. This means you don't have to have the desktop or laptop in the same room as your hi-fi [they just need to be switched on].

The rest of my kit is Windows, not Mac, but it still took only about 10 minutes to set up.

It works on the 802.11n protocol, and so is very fast.

Also on Ciao.

Summary: A really cool piece of kit

Processing/Quality:
Reliability:
Ease of use:
Installation:
Variety of features:
Features: