Apple AirPort Base Station and AirPort Card

Every year APC awards the best products of that year, and one of the categories is the Just Plain Cool Award. It’s the category for any product that’s made us slobber and drool, and the AirPort Base Station is a definite nominee for this one. If there was a Just Damn Sexy award, it would easily run away with the trophy.
Looking somewhat like a conical UFO but with iMac-like curves and styling, the Base Station is designed to work in either the home or business. The ports are recessed on the back of the Base Station, and the aerial is built into the unit and fully contained within the shell, keeping it neat and tidy.
Aesthetics aren’t the only appeal of the Base Station — at its fastest, it can transfer up to 11Mbps. It comes with a 10-BaseT Ethernet port (fairly ubiquitous stuff for wireless connections) for hooking up to your existing LAN. But that’s not all. Enhancing its appeal for those with a LAN but no external Internet connection, or for households or small busineses with multiple users who share an Internet connection, the Base Station comes with a built-in 56K modem.
If the Base Station is a little too much for you, all of the AirPort Cards can communicate effectively with each other (up to 11Mbps), which is great for file sharing and gaming. As with most of the wireless technology reviewed here, the AirPort range has an indoor range of 150m.
Apple also offers a software version of the Base Station that runs on AirPort-ready Macs, and effectively replaces the need for the station. Both the Base Station and the card are competitively priced and will appeal to the corporate, small business, home and school markets.