Filed under: Hardware, Odds and ends, Internet
ComputerWiz disassembles the new and old Airport Extremes
Anyway, the main goal was to find out if the new Airport's Gigabit speeds could have just been accomplished by upgrading the firmware of the old Airport Extreme, so CW ripped them both apart and took lots of pictures. All the watermarks make it a little hard to see, but what's clear is that the two different Airports use two different chips-- the earlier one uses the Broadcom BCM 5325, while the latest, Gigabit-speed Airport Extreme uses a BCM5395 chip.
What does this mean to you, as an Airport Extreme user? Not much. But it does mean that the Airport update is firmly hardware based-- you can't, for example, use an expander or a software update to speed up your old Airport Extreme unit. On the other hand, thanks to CW, you can get a look at the innards of both units, without having to take them apart yourself and that's always fun.
Get a WordPress.com Blog
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Leonard Nimrod said 8:21AM on 8-21-2007
This was on Engadget days ago. You guys should really monitor your sister site more closely. With lowered Apple news and the increasing popularity of Apple products, they out-Apple TUAW so often now that it's ridiculous.
Reply
Aaron Gyes said 9:33AM on 8-21-2007
Couldn't agree more. It doesn't help things that the majority of TUAW staff seems to lack any detailed knowledge of the computing, IT, or gaming industry, in addition to completely lack of technical understanding of Apple software, hardware, and development. Only noticeable exception being some interesting iPhone hacking posts.
Reply
Dogzilla said 10:26AM on 8-21-2007
"Disassembles", not "dissembles", which means "to lie". Jesus, you people get paid to write for a living? My first language was Spanish and I speak your language better than 90% of you do. Have some pride for chrissakes.
Reply
pangelav said 10:55AM on 8-21-2007
I'm still pissed they didn't include it in the first place!
Reply
artifex said 11:51AM on 8-21-2007
If the whiners keep coming back, either their whines are not serious, or they are even more pathetic than whatever or whoever they take issue with.
Reply
Simon Arch said 4:01PM on 8-21-2007
Speaking as someone who doesn't read Engadget on any kind of a regular basis, I appreciate the post, but not the whinging. If you guys are so unhappy with the content, why are you here in the first place? Why haven't you banded together to form your own, superior Mac blog?
Reply