JiWire Lab Test Results

As long as you're in the same room, the AirPort Express delivers commendable Wi-Fi throughput of 28Mbps, on par with the best 802.11g routers we've tested. Move to adjoining rooms, however, and performance drops significantly. Like its full-sized cousin, the AirPort Extreme Base Station, it can't provide a usable signal at the other end of a two-story house -- two or more AirPort Express units, bridged together with WDS will alleviate that problem, however.

In our tests of music streaming over AirTunes, we did not detect any noticeable degradation in sound quality or skipping as we moved our test PowerBook away from the AirPort Extreme as far away as 25 feet. However, at the 35-foot test point, AirTunes stopped playing, even though the Wi-Fi signal was still usable at that distance.

Throughput vs. Distance

Chart Key: Click on a product to see its results...
D-Link AirPlus XtremeG Wireless Router DI-624
Apple AirPort Express
Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station (with modem)

How We Tested

Our real-world performance tests measure actual throughput in a typical wood-frame house, through walls and floors, at five distances from the base station: 3 feet (same room), 15 feet (same floor), 25 feet (same floor), 35 feet (upstairs), and 50 feet (upstairs). All tests were conducted with 128-bit WEP encryption on, and in 802.11g-only mode, if available.