Buffalo AirStation review

Apple's AirPort products are well designed and easy to use, but they're not the only option available to Mac users who want to set up a wireless network or Internet connection.

The AirPort Base Station and card are based on the 802.11b wireless standard (also known as 'WiFi') so, in theory, they're compatible with any equipment from other manufacturers using the 802.11b technology.

Although all 802.11b base stations can be used with the Mac, many PC networking companies can't be bothered to write the Mac-compatible software to configure them, which limits the number of non-Apple alternatives available.

Configure it out

However, Buffalo Technology uses a clever solution to this problem with its AirStation device.

The software supplied with the AirStation is designed for PCs, but you can configure the AirStation through an ordinary Web browser. This means you can use it with either Macs or PCs without installing any additional software.

The AirStation is a compact unit standing upright and taking up very little space. It's not as eye-catching as the silvery AirPort Base Station, but its slimline white design is tidy and efficient. It uses a 'brick' adaptor to connect to the mains power, but this can easily be tucked out of sight under a desk.

Installation is simple. We used the AirStation to replace an Apple AirPort Base Station that was providing wireless access to an ADSL connection to a Macs equipped with an AirPort card. Once the AirStation was connected, the AirPort card in the Mac automatically detected the AirStation and listed it in the 'Choose Network' menu of the AirPort control panel. We selected the AirStation in this menu and were able to connect to the Internet straightaway, without having to adjust any settings further.

However, if you want to perform any additional configuration, you can launch your Web browser and enter 192.168.0.1 into the address bar. This is the IP address of the AirStation and allows you to view a number of pages containing various network settings.

There are two buttons on the main configuration page, offering a choice of Standard or Advanced settings. The Standard options include basic details, such as the name of your workgroup and the automatic or manual selection of IP and subnet addresses. Choosing the Advanced option leads you to more complex settings, for example setting passwords, encryption and creating connections with additional wired networks.

We did hit one small problem at this point. To enter the Standard or Advanced settings pages in your Web browser, you first need to enter a user name and password, but as we were using the AirStation for the first time, we hadn't yet set them. It turned out the default user name was already set as 'root' and the password wasn't set at all. None of this was covered in the AirStation's documentation, so we had to ring Buffalo's technical support.

This was the only problem we had with the AirStation, though, and it could be solved with better documentation. Apart from that, the AirStation worked perfectly. In fact, Buffalo's documentation is the only thing that let the AirStation down.

For a start, there are no less than four separate manuals, as well as a clutch of addenda and errata. It's all badly written with confusing illustrations, and it's aimed at PC users. There's an FAQ document on Buffalo's Web site aimed at Mac users, but it's complete gibberish to anyone who doesn't already have good knowledge of networking.

Value judgement