Which Airport Express is this?

Apple often releases products which are significantly upgraded on the inside, but which are identical on the outside. It is very very frustrating.

Take Apple’s Airport Express portable WiFi hub. These are really neat, since they can also act as print servers, as WiFi network extenders, and can even drive remote speakers for playing iTunes music.

We own several of these devices, all of which are identical white blocks. I use them all the time.

The only hint to their differences is the five-character model number — which is not the same as the nine-character product number. I started out making a quick-reference chart for my own purposes, but then figured, why not share it?

These are the two Airport Express models that Apple has offered so far. The most significant difference is in WiFi support — the newer model will work on a 5GHz WLAN. I may add more details later.

A1084 (M9470LL/A, introduced 2004)

802.11b/g, 2.4GHz

A1264 (MB321LL/A, introduced 2008)

802.11b/g/n, 2.4GHz
802.11a/n, 5GHz

Z Trek Copyright (c) Alan Zeichick
1 reply
  1. PbX
    PbX says:

    Note that the LL/A are the country identifier. The products are usualy identified by their “shorter” name : M9470 and MB321. The MB321 is known now as AirPort Express with AirTunes.

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