Modem Reviews

Doesn't work, no documentation, no tech support, nobody could help me making this thing connect to the Internet. It's in the garbage.

I had it for about an year. Doesn't work. It shows it is connected, but I cannot browse and websites. I get an error all the time.

I am a network technician at a small, local college and am on the working group to bring 802.11b ethernet wireless to our campus. Xircom was kind enough to give me a beta product for testing. Here are my impressions in a nutshell:

Pros: - - I'm able to check email (POP3 and IMAP4), hotsync to my PC across the network and browse the internet with the included software. According to the manual, those are the only functions advertised. Occasionally, you'll get web pages that, due to formatting, are clumsy to navigate, but you'll find they're good enough to get what you want. Many big sites such as CNN, MSNBC, Yahoo, etc. are making their pages "PDA friendly", and they're actually very readable. - - Contains a signal strength meter that seems to be pretty close to laptops we used for our site survey (and indicator LEDS). It uses a bar graph, but I wish it had a direct numeric read out also. - - Has three different "profiles" settings, making it possible to have 3 different network logins and settings. - - Supports standard 802.11b WEP security (40 or 128 bit). - - Support for Infrastructure or AdHoc mode. - - Supports DHCP and static IP addressing. Both tested fine. - - Battery life is much better than expected. The manual quotes 2 hrs, and that's about what I get using it pretty hard. Because of the high frequency radio waves (2.4 Ghz), it almost gets too warm to hold for that long! Of course, when winter comes here, that will be a plus ! - - Doesn't use battery power from the Visor, instead it has it's own Li-Ion battery and includes a charger. Charge time is about 2 hours. The module has a software battery meter like the Visor does. And will give the user "pop-up" messages when the battery gets critically low. - - Network Hotsync feature works great. As long as I can login into a WAP, I can hotsync, install files, get new meetings and appointments from Outlook, etc. from my desktop PC anywhere on campus. - - Has power management features for auto-logging off after a preset time period. - - Contains a Cisco chipset, but have connected to three different manufacture's WAP's with no problems, getting the full 11 mb/s. - - Range appears to be comparable to other 802.11b ethernet products.

Cons: - - Had a problem with the included browser software "Blazer", but Xircom sent me a patch to gain a user login. There are other browsers you can use, such as AvantGo and Eudora. I like AvantGo, but you have to have connect to a server that is running AvantGo. It does, however, do a nice job of formatting web pages to fit the Palm screen, and you can keep pages "active" by having them cached on your desktop before doing a hotsync. Also, Eudora provides a free PDA internet suite, that includes a browser and email client, sounds good, but haven't tried it yet. - - A little bulkier than the other modules, due to it's battery and antenna. - -My only problem has been logging into my web-based managed network devices or mapping drives. - -Tends to become a "hand heater" after awhile of use (High freq. RF power dissipation for sure!). - - Also even with the fast WLAN connection, I believe due to the Visor Deluxe's slower processor, it acts as a bottleneck for the internet connection. I would probably buy the faster model (Platinum) instead of the Deluxe. There is a noticeable difference in loading pages.

Summary: I LOVE this thing!! I'm able to sit out under a tree and surf the net, send/rev email, check appointments and put it in my pocket when I'm done. Battery power is sufficient for doing all the tasks I needed to. I would have given this device a 5-star rating if it included the ability to use utilities such as Ping and Telnet... (Opinions and comments written here are of my own and do not reflect my employer's policies or opinions.)

Update 7/21: I have recently found several of the tcp/ip utilities I had desired. I am now able to ping and telnet to my devices. The telnet is a little clumsy with the screen format, but it does work! Both of those utilites are easily found on the internet, or send me email and I'll send them to you. The latest test was the ICQ Palm client, which, so far, as also worked well. I have no choice but to give this thing a 5-star rating now !

I ended up returning this item because after many, many calls to tech support and numerous calls to my phone company, it was finally determined that my win modem wasn't compatible with this product...bummer!

I bought an HC3000 a few years ago, and I've never been online without it since then. there are a few kinks to it, but they most often stem from your telephone and internet provider or settings.

It always perfectly rings twice (and only twice...LOUDLY!) when someone is calling while online. It slows my connection for about 5 seconds during the ringing, but it's nothing to gripe about, you can only expect so much from a phone line at once. If you choose to answer it and talk for more than a few seconds you will lose your internet connection, but it does its job perfectly when it comes to not missing a call.

The only drawback (lost a star for this) is the lack of Call-Waiting-ID support it's supposed to have. I could never get it to show with the external box I bought, and the phone I have connected has CWCID as well. I'll be upgrading to the 4000 model with the built-in display box and see if that works with my setup.

compared to not having one of these, having to choose betweeen either disabling call waiting and giving every caller "the busy signal" or getting kicked offline when anyone calls, this is an essential accessory for any dial-up user.

BTW: The only difference between the 2000 and 3000 model is the added optional Call-Waiting Caller-ID feature of the 3K, and the color of the unit. both of them were sold at the same time, but the 3K was a bit more expensive than the 2K.

We've used the HotCall box for several years now & wouldn't be without it! Granted there are a few improvements that could be made (the ringer is LOUD with no volume control & only the phone connected to the box can answer, so if you're in another room R-U-N), but overall this product has served us well. Only occasionally am I knocked offline even after hanging up from an answered call within the 10 seconds allotted. I think that problem stems more from the telemarketer on the other line NOT disconnecting right away rather than from the HotCall box not reestablishing my web connection. We are constantly telling people about the box after getting a busy signal while they've been on the web. It's certainly worth the money we paid for it & cost us a lot less than a 2nd 'internet dedicated' phone line would run a month!

Very bad product. Documentation did not match installation software. Software gave errors. Hawking website doesn't show this model. Tech support wait time in excess of 45 minutes. Tried to push through the installation, and it failed. Returned product.

I setup this product for my home use, thinking I may use it for a client too. The documentation is pretty sparse and the CD manual is not easy to read. THe documentation says that this is a multi-ptorocol device. This is actually correct but not in the traditional sense. In this case it appears that multiple protocols are REQUIRED for the server to work. In my case I desired to just use TCP/IP in a windows XP environment. The device appears to follow the Microsoft lead of requiring some type of Netbios to be present.

Not all of the admin tools work under XP, but enough work to get it functional.

Overall for the cost, it works. It could be lots better but what really can you expect from a device the size of a printer dongle. (If you know what a dongle is, you have been in the business too long, like me. For the uniformed, it is a security device typically attached to the parallel port of a PC to counter software piracy. In this case, the "dongle" is on the printer, not the PC.)

I read the reviews here, but decided to try it out anyway, as it is the cheapest alternative I could find. Having read here and elsewhere about the need to disable WinXP's firewall, I tried to do that before I started the installation. However, I couldn't find it anywhere on my PC, so I decided to go ahead and see what happened without messing with the firewall.

I was surprised at how easily this mini server installed. It took me less than 30 minutes to install it on three WinXP machines and one Win2000. I followed the instructions exactly as they were printed in the booklet, and didn't have to do anything extra. Very smooth and very easy. I highly recommend it... at least from my experience with it.

I bought this module to fill it up with pictures of my family and to use the Vibe alarm in cases where sound would get me into trouble. Hey, I almost forget about the color update for my Prism. I would buy another if it had more memory like 16 or 32, but 2MB is like having pennies in your pockets. I would suggest getting the MemPlug, which gives you a lot of features for a reasonable price.

I was very excited about getting this product -- the idea of no longer annoying the folks around me when my alarm goes off (which is frequent, I set lots of reminders for myself in the way of timed floating events) appealed to me greatly -- but now, after having had it for a little while, I'm afraid I'm a bit dissapointed. First off, the vibration action is a bit loud. Now, this is probably a side effect of the fact that it's also fairly powerful, which is a good thing, especially if you wear your Visor in a belt-clip holster, as I do... But the amount of noise, while far from huge, was a little bit annoying. That, though, wasn't too big of a deal -- it was still a lot quieter than the speaker, and yet it was easier to detect, because I could feel it, even in noisy environments. The big deal thing was that at times it has "spontaneously" (I haven't been able to track down the exact scenario that causes it to happen -- it seems pretty random, so far... There haven't been alarms, and I haven't been touching the visor) turned itself on (i.e. turned on the vibration motor)... The only way to turn it off was to either pull the module (which worked fine without causing any detectable problems) or to go to the "test" application, and hit the "Off" button. When the visor is with you, this is a mild annoyance, but once I had it sitting on my couch, and came up to it after a time elsewhere in my apartment, and heard (ok, maybe the loudness is a good thing? ;-) it vibrating... I have no idea how long it had been on, but my batteries, which I'd put in a few days earlier, were now close to depleted. So, if you're going to use this, I suggest you put it in before going into the movie theatre or meeting or whatever, and leave it out the rest of the time. (Also note: The problem of the module turning itself _may_ not be a problem with the module itself... it's much harder to tell if this is happening with other modules, and I _have_ noticed a surprising rate of battery drain with one of my other modules installed, but not in active use. Either way, this is something to be aware of with something that takes as much power as a motor, so I thought it best to state it here.)

It's a bit hard to turn off. It keeps vibrating even after you press to turn it off. I wish this also had an LED that flashes when something comes up on the Handspring.

I don't use it much, unless I'm in a meeting. I don't bother other people when I have a message getting my attenion.

The model number of this modem is USR5699B. It crashs my system (frequently (I have Windows XP Professional, which is a very stable operating system). After each crash the core dump screen shows that one of its driver file has problem (3c1807pd.sys).

I bought this modem just becasue it is a US Robotics. My old US Robotics Sportster modem works perfectly for more than 5 years. But I am very disappointed at this one. I did not give it one star becasue this is a very fast modem.

I got my 3Com two weeks ago and had a terrible time trying to determine what was wrong with it. Finally, it proved to be a hardware problem. The modem was defective. It seems to be real fast, but two agonizing weeks of trouble shooting is too much since it requires checking both software and hardware.

My experience with this winmodem is very good.
I downloaded and installed the latest win2k driver from [URL]. Everything went very smooth with 48~50kbps
download speed. I feel it is much better then diamond supermax
usb external modem for win2k. The latter one keeps disconnecting
from the isp and I have to reboot the machine to reconnect. It
may because of the driver, though.

I bought this device to communicate from any room in my house with my tungsten|w (which has its own issues). The devices will only connect in the same room. There are no wi-fi solutions for this palm, so I'm stuck. Technology is letting me down. I'm becoming Amish.

Buyer beware this is a useless product, if you set a password it locks you out even if you use the password you set, you can still Telnet into it but have to return the unit to Belkin for exchange, as Belkin support do not know anything about Telnet.
Belkin are a rubbish company who provide unuseable support and customer service not availible.
I have never used such a bad company this is my first and last belkin product you can not even configure the first client IP it gives out, so is useless in a network enviroment.

Bad product, bad company, bad support, you have been warned.

We had this AP in our office for some time now, and it works well (we are using a fixed IP address).

One caveat about the range:
This is a "Class 1" Bluetooth device with an output power of 100mW, which will indeed have a 100m range, but ONLY if the other device is also Class 1. All mobile devices (phones, PDAs) I know of are Class 2, with an output power of 2.5mW and a maximum free air range of 25m, effectively meaning "same room" indoors. Class 1 Bluetooth would drain the battery of a mobile device too fast. This one of the weaknesses of WiFi (30-100mW output power) - a WiFi card needs more power than a PocketPC (let alone a Palm) and will cut your battery time in half or less.

This modem worked great for us with Win XP, however - after uninstalling this modem and going on to DSL, the darn MODEM ON HOLD UTILITY won't leave me alone. I don't remember ever asking the install to load this. It did, though, and now it won't go away! I would love to know how to uninstall this! I did not ever use it in the first place. It comes up in my system tray over and over and I have to close it down every time I restart my computer and I can't even find it in my system! I HATE programs like this that hide from me and I have no control over them... especially when they are useless! Grrr...

Got the modem in 2 days from Amazon although they promised 3-7 business days - WAY TO GO AMAZON!!! You Rock!

I got the retail box to replace my US Robotics PCI 56K Voice OEM modem because it turned out that I could not get drivers for Windows XP and the XP recognized it as regular Fax/Data modem (i,e - no voice functionality).

Installation was pretty easy although I spent a few hours on it and a few phone calls to tech support who were very attentive and helpfull.
The problem I experienced is because Windows XP automatically assign the modem with IRQ. In most cases windows will share the same IRQ between different items. This approach usually works however sometimes it creates conflicts although windows shows none. So the only thing you can do, is start moving the card from one slot to the other and rebooting, until windows will assign the right combination of IRQ. Given that you need to uninstall and reinstall the drivers for each slot, this can take some time. However it is only fair to say THIS ISN't CREATIVE's fault. it can happen with any card.

As for the modem itself, I got it so I can use its speakerphone functionality to participate in conference calls. Unfortunately the software that comes with this modem doesn't even worth the CD it is printed on. Although the internet is full of free utilities I would love to see this product shipped with a couple more decent try-and-buy products (...) That's why I gave it only 4 stars.

Other than that I did not test the modem with internet connection. The fax and voice works just fine. This modem worth the price.

I'll say it upfront. I had an Actiontec modem. I replaced it with the Modem Blaster V.92 PCI. Immediately, my connection speed increased more than 200%, and my download speed by 300%! The biggest problem is installation. This surprised me coming from a Creative Labs product. I was used to easy installation. I am running Win XP. Apparently, when this modem was issued, Win XP was just being introduced. The included installation disc was useless. So, my computer wouldn't recognize it as a Modem Blaster V.92, just as a generic 56K modem, using the enclosed installation disc. I made the mistake of taking out my previous modem before I installed this one. Take my advice. Leave your old modem in, go to Creative's web site, and download the latest driver for Win XP. I didn't do this, and had to install this modem as a generic 56K, then download the updated driver. However, after I downloaded the updated driver, I uninstalled the Modem Blaster (listed as a generic 56K modem), and reinstalled it with the new driver. Wow! It is so much better than what I had. Even installed as a generic modem it was sooo much better. It's important to install it as a Modem Blaster V.92 modem because you get the "call waiting" feature, which is huge to me, although you need to download the XP update for this feature also. It's not hard to navigate the Creative web site. Just make sure the model number of your modem matches that of the downloads. Overall, I am very happy, after getting over my frustration with the initial install. Take my advice, and you can shortcut the frustration I felt and have a flawless install, and you will be happy with the performance. That's the bottom line: performance, and this modem has delivered for me. By the way, I live out in the boondocks, where connection speed is hard to come by. This modem has boosted my speed almost to the level of my mom's DSL speed at her office ( the difference is very, very small, except for downloads)!

Scott

If you are looking for a cheap modem, keep looking. This is not what you are looking for.

Requires MMX. This is not messaged until installation. If your CPU is a Pentium-2 or 3, you don't need to worry about this.

I would assume it works fine otherwise.

this is a pretty good modem. does teh job and a great low price. hope this helped

This modem by D-link is now leading a revolution of cheap(not the inexpensive kind), software driven modems. When D-link first released this modem it contained all the hardware necessary for the modem to dial out and communicate by itself. Starting in mid-May of 2001 they started replacing the hardware driven variety with a software controlled version, meaning that this modem sucks up YOUR system resources and processor time instead of using its own. This is why one of the previous reviewers was having problems. There are many many real hardware USB modems out there for less money than this one and they work great with Windows, Mac, Linux, you name it, but don't buy this one before you think about it really hard.

Installation was smooth and easy, then the problems started. Every time I used a dial-up connection all my system became so slow that even reading e-mail was almost impossible. Even the mouse pointer seemed almost frozen. The box mention free technical support, but no tech support is mentioned in the documentation. Not a phone number, not a web site. I had to perform a web search to find it. I wrote down 3 (three) times, explaining in detail my problem, and after more than one month I did NOT get any reply from them. I ended up returning the modem to the vendor. I have a Pentium II - 350, Windows 98, with USB ports working fine, so no compatibility problem should have been present. But I will never know what happened, since their ridiculous "customer support" never bothered so send me a reply. If you buy this, good luck!

This modem is great for the dial up user because of it's reliability and speed. The performance ranks right up there with other 56k modems including modems from US Robotics and Diamond. Also remember that the speed at which your modem connects at also depends on such things as line quality and the area you live in. This modem does it's job quite well if not exceeds the performance of other modems if you have the good lines etc. as stated above. The simple USB connection is also a plus saving you time and headaches from opening your PC case and figuring out how to install it!

Gosh..

This modem is no good! I have bad phone line, that is why I purchased this modem (I heard USR makes the best of a bad line). Install was easy but I experienced these conditions:

1) The Control Center would not find the modem.
2) Connection speeds always slower than my laptop
3) Would disconnect all the time (1 to three minutes max connection)

It is going back to the store for more shelf life....

This is a horrible little soft modem, that freezes the computer upon disconnecting from the ISP under W/98. Didn't bother to call tech support, returned modem ASAP for refund. Don't bother, go with ZOOM instead.

U.S. Robotics 56K Faxmodem PCI for Windows Model 5699B was very easy to install and it came with the software which drives the hardware. All it took to take out the old modem and install the new modem was 5 minutes tops.

This modem includes the V.92 and V.90 ITU standard technologies and it works far beter than I expected. Sending e-mail and attachments are around 50 percent faster, with a quicker internet connect and it takes incoming calls while online so you won't miss that inportant telephone call while online.

Package Contents:

U.S. Robotics 56K Faxmodem PCI for Windows
RJ-11 phone cord (7ft)
Quick Installation Guide
Installation CD-ROM

Minimum System Requirements

Pentium 133 MHz Processor or higher, as recommended for your specific Windows operating system
Available PCI 2.1 Slot
CD-ROM drive
Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP operating system
56K Compatible local analog phone line
V.90 required a V.90 56K ITU standard capable service provider
V.92 requires a V.92 56K ITU standard capable service provider

Two-Year Limited Warranty

Free parts and labor coverage
Factory repair or replacement

The product box says, "Ready. Set. Connect." and it really is.
Remember that this modem fix a PCI slot which is a white slot off of the mother board.