Modem Reviews

This product is junk, due to a cheap connector that broke the first time I tried to remove it form my Visor Pro. The keyboard wouldn't work at all when first installed, then worked intermittently with much adjusting of the position of the keyboard after the connector was cracked. A really disappointing dud.

The ThumbPad is very lightweight, but seems quite durable. The Visor slides into a nice solid dock with the ThumbPad, unlike other mini-keyboards I've seen where the connection is very tenuous, and you have to be really careful to support the unit to avoid putting any weight on the connection. With the ThumbPad the can just hold the keyboard, which easily supports the weight of the Visor for comfortable typing.

The keyboard layout has a pretty big flaw. There's only one shift key, at the lefthand side. Would including a shift key on the right side as well have increased the size of the unit by that much? Punctuation is accessed using the "function" key, and, you guessed it, there's only one, on the lefthand side, right next to the quotation mark and apostrophe, making it very awkward to type these symbols. If there were shift and function keys on each side, you wouldn't have to shift your grip on the ThumbPad and it would be much more comfortable.

My biggest frustration with the ThumbPad is a non-fatal but annoying bug. If the ThumbPad is idle too long (on the order of ten seconds), the PDA stops accepting input from the keypad. I have to turn off the PDA, and turn it back on by pressing a key on the ThumbPad, and then I can continue typing normally. My email to tech support has not yet been returned (though it's only been a few days). I had a similar small bug with a different Targus keyboard in the past, which was never resolved, so I think I'll be avoiding their products in the future (when possible--the Visor user doesn't have a LOT of options for peripherals!)

The Targus ThumbPad is an external thumbboard that attaches to your Palm via the Universal Connector at the bottom. Rather than covering the buttons and Graffiti area, it extends a couple of inches beneath the handheld, which amazingly rests firmly in place. The ThumbPad is made of plastic and is very light.

It's not nearly as functional as the full-size folding keyboards -- useful extra keys like "New" and "OK" aren't there, but that's to be expected with a keyboard this size. More perplexing, however, is the absence of parenthesis keys. You do have to reach for the stylus and the Palm's own buttons from time to time, and you must resist the temptation to use the ThumbPad's directional keys in the Apps menu -- they don't page up and down.

The fact that the ThumbPad flares outward from the Palm's base gives the keyboard more room and allows the keys to be bigger than the keys that PDAs with built-in thumbboards have. Key action is very nice, as nice as the Tungsten W or C (but with more room) and far nicer than Sony Clie thumbboards. I find typing surprisingly quick. I would have preferred to see sticky Shift, Fn and Control keys, like some built-in thumbboards, since holding down two keys at once is awkward on a keyboard of this type.

Overall I'm quite pleased with this little thumbboard, and look forward to using it to send SMS when my Palm Bluetooth card arrives.

This review was drafted on a Palm m505 using the ThumbPad.

After excellent, albeit not spectacular, connections with an old ZOOM external serial port V.90 modem, I thought it time to not only upgrade to the V.92 communication protocol but also get rid of the cables and power brick that are part of any external modem, as well as the outdated standard serial port. Note that the old ZOOM modem (with a new XP driver) worked flawlessly on a new DELL 2.6 GHz Pentium with 512 MB of RAM, running Win-XP Pro. I picked the USR 5610 for two reasons: a) it's the one sold in the DELL store for the GX270 model, and b) it is one of the very few PCI modems with an onboard flash-upgradable EPROM (as well as a DSP digital signal processor) -- of course you pay for those extras, as compared with a commodity "Win Modem" that uses the computer's processor. Physical installation was easy enough, as was the software driver (dated 8/01) installation from the enclosed CD. OK, ready to test [after verifying proper hardware installation with XP Device Manager's 'Modem Diagnostics']. Now it gets hairier: if and when the modem connected with my ISP, the "handshaking" just went sour - the modem simply was incapable of recognizing any of the faster protocols and ended up (if it connected at all) at from 14 to 28 kbps speeds -- whereas the previous external modem on the identical phone line delivered from 42 to 46 kbps. Worse, the modem rarely connected at the first try and - even worse - just dropped the connection after a few minutes for no apparent reason. [I'm writing this from my other DELL with a ZOOM internal modem at 49.2 kbps speed]. The USR website shows that a newer "Flash' was available (but no new drivers), which I installed then reverified. Same problems. Neither the USR database nor the techs were of any help, reading from a script that starts with "are you plugged in" to checking the LAN installation. Frankly, I knew more about modem operation than the various techs. Wonder how this company still survives -- maybe it's in chapter 11? Who knows. Basically, this piece of junk was designed for WIN95-98-ME a few years ago; with XP support sort of an afterthought. The XP driver provided on the CD is over 2 years old. Worst of all, I've wasted nearly a full day before pulling the modem card and reinstalling the external modem - warts and all.
ADDENDUM: Replaced the old external serial modem with ZOOM's V.92 internal PCI card and updated the driver online; it worked like a charm from the start - at half the cost of the USR modem. [Trying to puzzle out why the USR modem faired so poorly, it might be that the on-board controller is tuned so tight as to misinterpret my ISP's handshaking protocol? Who knows, it just didn't work for me and, as evident from the reviews, for others.

This modem is very unreliable. It can't hold a connection for more than an hour before randomly cutting out. My wife's 56K modem (Apple) never misses a beat on same phone line. USR warranty is now only two years. On top of that, customer support by phone is only free for 90 days. After that you pay... for the privilege. You can probably buy a better modem for [the money]. By the way, that's what I'm gonna do.

This is a quality controller based V.92 internal PCI modem from USR that will run under both the Windows and Linux OS's. If you are not familiar with controller based modems, it simply means that the modem has circuitry onboard that processes the data - instead of sending it to the CPU - so the system will not get bogged down in processing.

I have had a great experience with this modem, and have not seen or experienced the connection loss or problems that the previous reviewer posted. As for the company, U.S. Robotics is well known and trusted and provides current drivers and updates on its website.

Conclusion: Although this modem does run more than controllerless / winmodems, it will definitely improve you dial-up experience and is worth the money in my humble opinion.

Look out - this card is for older versions of Windows only, not Windows XP. Although it's not obvious from the main page for this product on Amazon, Amazon is selling a 2001 version of the Siemens SpeedStream PCMIA 10/100 Ethernet Card (SS1012). As a result, there is no driver for Windows XP included. If you go to the Siemens website, you learn that there IS NO DRIVER for Windows XP for this product. Siemens later came out with a different version of the SS1012, and that different version does have a Windows XP driver. But for this older version sold by Amazon, only the earlier versions of Windows are supported. Wish I'd known that before I ordered this.

This ethernet card was extremely easy to set up and it seems to work flawlessly. Not all ethernet cards are created equal, some rival others while some are just ok. This card is at the top of the pack, offering ease of use and siemens quality construction. Although, it's a little more expensive than some other cards... I think the price is warranted!

I was not able to get this card working with my Win2K laptop. I'm no novice, have configured the rest of my wireless network without any problem, and have had a friend's Netgear card working in the same system. I called tech support and after working with me they said the card was defective and to send it back, which I did. However, I had the same problem with the replacement card. So, I can't recommend this product.

(...)I am using this card on old p3 laptop
get good reception, and able to get up to 24M at low
but xp users must read this
upon installation, the system may install the driver automatically, the driver is WRONG! this is for PCI version, will not work on the pc card
after installation, you must update the driver with the one comes with CD
after that, it should be good to go
and there's another benefit for 2 pc card slot laptop users: this card is thin enough to put another card on top of this

reception in kitchen
trendware: good to low
MS MN-710: low to very low

I have been using pda's for 6 years and most people use them because they aren't sitting at a desk.My current one is the Ipaq 2210/2215 (love it). My first pda was the palm vIIx and I had their portable keyboard. The pda had to attach to it, but it always worked - every key! Great for the hotel stay or any desk.
With this Belkin unit you first have to update your driver (go to the Belkin website). You may have to uninstall other keyboard software first. Some PDA's have the ability to turn the screen sideways in Word or Excel which is good. Mine doesn't and the only way to get it to line up is to sit my pda in the FLIMSY holder UPSIDE down. Trying to line up your pda to the infrared using the adjustable metal shield is difficult. Even when I turned my pda upside down half the keys wouldn't work. If you wasted enough time reading this then I may have saved you $$$ and headache. I won't even offer to sell mine.

I bought this for my iPaq h1940 (a fine pocket PC, I should mention), but if your IR port is on the side, says the Belkin manual, you must lay the PPC sideways to align the port with the keyboard signal.
This is ok I guess if your pocket PC has landscape disply settings. Mine doesn't. Yet Belkin still says this keyboard is "compatible" with the h1940...

Problem #2: Except for the shortcut keys on the left side, none of the keys work! I'll try and see if Belkin can help with that.

I bought this unit for a Palm IIIe and it was supposed to be compatible. Well it is if you use the stand which is not worth much for on the road, in the car use...you need a stable table. The screen rotation if it worked would allow you to dispose of the stand and have real freedom. Upside down (unusable of course) works great and with good range...but
if the rotate screen software that comes with it worked as it is SUPPOSED to it would be wonderful...but alas it doesn't work and Belkin has said that it has not intention of fixing the software...how much time would it take?....to make this a truly good freedom keyboard?
I have mangaged work arounds like reflecting the signal off foil, chrome etc. to avoid the stand...I actually now have a bent spoon taped to the pda's IR port which works like a TV dish...looks dumb but works....bur really...if they say it works and is compatible...IT SHOULD WORK...yes they said they would take it back but only in trade for another Belkin product. I want to like this keyboard ...it has great potential.

I've had the misfortune of owning this modem for 3 years. That power supply connector and the ethernet connector on the back are both junk! Breath on it, touch it, or have any stress or vibration on those cables and the unit will constantly reset itself. One day, I got so angry at it, I grabbed the unit by the power cord, swung it around and smashed it onto the floor. The plastic around the power plug cracked apart exposing the metal pins. After that the modem stopped reseting itself nearly as often.

The only reason, I kept the modem so long was because the cable company screwed up the configuration and gave me a 3 Mbps connection for the cost of a 256Kbps connection. Eventually even that benefit wasn't enough for me and I purchased a used Com21 modem off of ebay and that one is more reliable, although unfortuantly properly configured.

If you see one of these things on ebay, DON'T BUY IT. It's a terribly unreliable unit. If you actually own one of these things, solder the power supply wires directly to the PCB. Only that will solve your problem.

Like other reviewers, I also lose connectivity with this machine. More specifically, if I nudge the modem accidentally while I work or if I wiggle the cable to which it is connected (which happens when I vacuum), I lose my internet connection. My anonymous and evil broadband service provides this machine, and I have had it for about two years. I am currently shopping to replace it with another machine and return it to the evil cable company.

I bought this modem when it was on sale. Since then, it kept dropping the connection now and then. It turned out to be the loose power connector. If you move the modem, it's more likely than not that the modem would start looking for the signal from scratch. Once it started to automatically drop connections on me. So I called the cable company. The tech support came and said it could be because the _temperature variation_ that the connection was lost and it was quite common in RCA models. So he replaced the connector for me. Well, it doesn't drop the connection automatically anymore. But I still need to be very careful not to shake it or knock it. So I put it in a corner. So far so good. But if you are buying a cable modem, skip this one unless you can get a free one ;) The reason for 2 stars is because when it works, it works fine. I tested the bandwidth of this modem, download was always >1mb/s. I'm sure other modems would produce similar results if not better -- DCM226 is a fairly old model after all.

I bought this modem as inexpensive one, guided by a false advertisement that this modem is "hardware" modem, i.e. has its own controller. It happened to be the same winmodem as others but communication speed is even lower.
Maybe it's well supported on Windows 95/98 but attempts to use the "updated" driver to install it on Windows 2000 resulted in 2 days waste of time. I have to trash it and try to find something more reliable.
That was my second (and last) experience with USR modems.

Don't buy this modem if you have Windows 2000. Even though the box claims that the modem can be installed on Windows 2000, the drivers CD accompanying the modem has no drivers for Windows 2000! AFter discovering that, I went to their website and downloaded the driver for 2000. But 2000 would not install the driver because it kept complaining about missing INF files. I find it hard to believe that this product was released without testing drivers for Windows 2000.

There are detailed install instructions for XP on the USRobotics web page. Very impressive and easy to follow!

I made the mistake of purchasing 2 of these since I believed US Robotics to be a quality brand. Both stopped working after about 7 days, wouldn't work on WinME, WinXP or Win2kPro. Couldn't find anyone to contact and gave up.

This item is NOT compatible with windows xp pro!!!
After 3 hours of long distance charges calling tech support, the modem still does not work and thanks to their expert instructions, my registry is now damaged. Buy anything else, but do not buy this modem. The only reason I gave it one star was because it would not accept my comment without me selecting something.

This was not a conclusive test but the modem only worked on my onboard USB 1.0 VIA 82C596B controller and not my NEC USB 2.0 PCI adapter.

If you're having problems, try a USB 1.0 port.

Yes the Zoom USB 3090 modem is a fine piece of crap in a small container when it comes to Hyperthreading CPU's. When it is hooked up and connected to the internet I get 50k+ bps connectivity almost everytime. But, whenever the line dies for whatever reason, you have three possible outcomes/solutions: 1) unplugged the little [item], and throw it across the room, which I have done numerous times out of shear frustration, or 2) reboot the computer, which have had to do nearly every time the little [item] quits a connection, and you forget to use the Microsoft "Safely Remove Hardware" utility available as a tray icon, or 3) hope that you remember to use the tray icon mentioned above, and that it actually works as sometimes the computer hangs onto the connnection and refuses to let it go, and you are again left to reboot the computer just to logon to the internet again. If you do get the tray icon to work, then you need to also unplug and plugin the USB connection each time to power down the modem -- the whole process is drag!

One would think that you should be able to logon and logoff the internet without having to reboot the computer nearly every damn time. The people at Zoom Telephonics do not seem to realize that they have a little [item] of a modem here, and they don't seem to care either. I was duped into buying this modem which does not mean you should either. Don't buy this one ever unless you like squeeze toys that you can throw across the room.

On second thought, I rescind the single star and post a null instead.

I bought this modem after reading some positive reviews around the web (unfortunately I didn't read the reviews here). I heard a lot of people had problems with USR modems so I decided to go with this.

What a MISTAKE!

There are two Zoom 3049 v.92 modems out there. One is the 3049L (based on the Agere/Lucent chipset), and the other is the 3049C (the one I'm referring to) (based on the Conexant/Rockwell chipset). I just got the 3049, not knowing what was in the box. I wouldn't care, except that this modem is totally unreliable.

First, the one I got didn't come with a serial cable so be careful - some do and some don't. The serial cable cost another $15.

Second, the previous reviewer is absolutely correct - DON'T use this modem with WINXP and HT. The "real drivers" just crash WinXP upon installation. I emailed Zoom tech support, and they told me to get the beta drivers. These are beta drivers for Win NT and are grossly outdated, not supporting all of the v.92 features. They're beta, but they haven't been updated in a couple years. I tried them anyway. I connected at about 40k, and on special occasions, even 45k. Now I'm using the generic WinXP modem driver. It only supports v.90, but at least I can connect at speeds up to 49.2k.

Overall, connections are stable during good conditions, but when conditions get worse, it totally chokes. Sometimes it won't connect, connects at 23-31k, disconnects, or just stops downloading while remaining connected.

Could be my phone line. BUT, this is replacing an old v.90 (originally a 33.6k modem before upgrading driver) USR winmodem. I thought hardware-based modem would be better than a softmodem :( The old USR consistently connected at 50.6k though, and it could hold a connection better.

Doesn't look like the silly driver will ever be updated. If you're a gambling man/woman, give it a shot;)

I bought this modem after reading some positive reviews around the web (unfortunately I didn't read the reviews here). I heard a lot of people had problems with USR modems so I decided to go with this.

What a MISTAKE!

There are two Zoom 3049 v.92 modems out there. One is the 3049L (based on the Agere/Lucent chipset), and the other is the 3049C (the one I'm referring to) (based on the Conexant/Rockwell chipset). I just got the 3049, not knowing what was in the box. I wouldn't care, except that this modem is totally unreliable.

First, the one I got didn't come with a serial cable so be careful - some do and some don't. The serial cable cost another $15.

Second, the previous reviewer is absolutely correct - DON'T use this modem with WINXP and HT. The "real drivers" just crash WinXP upon installation. I emailed Zoom tech support, and they told me to get the beta drivers. These are beta drivers for Win NT and are grossly outdated, not supporting all of the v.92 features. They're beta, but they haven't been updated in a couple years. I tried them anyway. I connected at about 40k, and on special occasions, even 45k. Now I'm using the generic WinXP modem driver. It only supports v.90, but at least I can connect at speeds up to 49.2k.

Overall, connections are stable during good conditions, but when conditions get worse, it totally chokes. Sometimes it won't connect, connects at 23-31k, disconnects, or just stops downloading while remaining connected.

Could be my phone line. BUT, this is replacing an old v.90 (originally a 33.6k modem before upgrading driver) USR winmodem. I thought hardware-based modem would be better than a softmodem :( The old USR consistently connected at 50.6k though, and it could hold a connection better.

Doesn't look like the silly driver will ever be updated. If you're a gambling man/woman, give it a shot;)

The product failed after one day of serivce. For the next week it would intermitently connect to the Internet for a few hours and fail again for a few hours until it died completely. I called Customer Service, which seems to be overseas, and their technicians were terrible. In two calls I had conflicting answers and they did not seem to know how to troubleshoot the problem; they kept asking me to ping addresses unrelated to the modem and they kept refering to it as a router. Once they decided that it is defective they asked me to pay for shipping charges to replace my brand new modem which amounted to 25% of the cost of the product. I would never buy a Netgear product again.

No more sitting and waiting. No more busy signals. NETGEAR's Broadband Cable Modem gives you an uninterrupted connection plus lightning-fast speeds for streaming music, online gaming, and sharing digital photos so you can be involved and productive anytime and every time you want. When combined with a router, it lets you share your ISP connection among multiple PCs. It's DOCSIS certified, which means no worries because this cable modem is guaranteed to work with your local cable service provider, both now and if you move. Its streamlined design saves valuable desk space - you can position it vertically or horizontally.

Features:
Always ON, High-speed Internet access
No more dropped connections
No need for a dedicated telephone line
USB & Ethernet interface options
Included stand for vertical positioning

i've had this modem running on my Mac for over a year and it's never given me the hassles listed below. bought it, plugged it in--it connected immediately, and since then i've pretty much forgotten it's there. been a solid performer (knock on wood). the case even complements my Mac nicely.