Customer Reviews

56K V.92 USB External Data / Fax / TAM Modem

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Recently I helped a senior friend of mine purchase a new computer. I was setting it up for her and when I went to take it online to her dial up provider, I discovered the computer had no modem. As I later learned, this is the case for all new computers now which is too bad because in remote areas many people are still forced to use dial up.

I went online and looked at several products. The reviews on this one indicated it was plug and play and the price was better than some of the other products I looked at. It has delivered as promised. I just plugged it into an open USB port on her new computer, plugged in the phone line and away we went. She doesn't use fax so I don't know about how that works, but as for a dial up service it delivers the connection with no problem.

I got this because Windows 7 has a built-in program to send faxes from the computer; it works fine, with no installation problems.

I hooked this up to Windows 7 and with 5 minutes I was Faxing. I bought a $2000.00 HP Desktop; who what of thought that it did not come with a modem????? Bought this on-line and what a relief. Plugged it in, I watched Windows 7 find the drivers and Windows 7 Fax Wizard took over after I clicked on My fax Machine in "Installed Devices" I did not install the disk/drivers that came with it and I don't intend to because it says it contains an internet security program from "2008" on it. I'm running Spy Doctor and Nortons so I didn't need any conflicts, and I don't want to have to buy anything. My recommendation: plug it in and see if it installs. If you're running Windows 7 you're in bussiness in 5 minutes. As far as XP, you'll have to red further for other comments. But for $40............it's Bitchin'

Don't bother loading the driver disc or going out to the internet to look for drivers. I simply plugged the modem into a usb port on my Win 7 x64 bit computer and in about 20 seconds the computer located and installed the drivers. The modem works fine for fax and internet connection, it has a Lucent chip set in it. The modem works great with my wife's laptop running Win 7 x32 bit. It is also self installing on that system as well. Easiest install of any device ever on our computers.

Pretty much plug and play. Install the software and connect. Simple and very effective.

I recently bought this modem for my mother's new laptop computer Windows 7, It would not install, didn't matter if I plugged it in first or tried to install the disk, it couldn't find the driver. Have to mess around now trying to find out what is wrong. If I can't
get it to work guess I'll be sending it back.I based my purchase on the reviews of this product, IM very disapointed

Installed and worked fine for a couple months sending faxes via Windows 7 (64-bit) Fax driver. Then, mysteriously, it stopped working. I've uninstalled and reinstalled the modem driver and uninstalled and reinstalled Windows Fax services. No luck. Now, it's useless.

Purchased a HP laptop without determining if a turtle modem was in the unit. Answer was, NO, so I purchased the only option for land line access to the internet. My choice of a USB modem was OK for accessing the internet since my location is in the boondocks and access options are limited. However, if you need to download large files, forget it. This modem was so slow that to download a 1 meg file took over twenty minutes. My laptop came with wireless setup and that would have been ok if I lived in a large city. The unit was very easy to install and hook up to telephone service. Had absolutely no problems with unit or supplied software except for the speed of operation. Never got better than 25K speed where I live. Probably averaged about 19K most of the time. Just couldn't stand the slow speed. That is not the fault of the unit since a land line modem hooked up to a USB port is going to be slow no matter what you do. Purchase of this modem was a mistake on my part and is basicly useless due to above mentioned speed considerations. If you use your computer to do basic internet access and email (small emails) applications, then this product will get the job done.

Purchased this item. Worked great out of the box. 2 months later it failed to recognize dial tone. I tried to contact the manufacture which is Encore Electronics. They do not have a toll free number to call. Attempted to call them about 10 times. Once I was put on hold to wait for help. Waited 26 minutes with no one coming on line. The other 9 tries a recording answered and said they were busy and disconnected the call. Tried sending them an e-mail with no response at all. This apparently is a company that makes cheap products and doesn't back them. The warranty is useless. I would advise not buying this item.

Most of the current computers do not ship with 56K FAX modems any more. Some of the computer companies that allow customization can put a card in the computer, especially if you talk directly with the salesman, but this is at about 2x the cost over what you would pay if you buy a card and put it into a PCI or PCIe slot yourself(trivial exercise). HOWEVER, If it's a legacy card, particularly with unsigned drivers, you may have considerable difficulty installing it in Windows 7 which is very fussy about unsigned drivers unless you go into the F8 menu and manually override the security, and this often has to be done with each boot to avoid corruption of the driver's installation and system crashes. A royal pain and a deal breaker to say the least!

The beauty of this USB device, is that it is really simply plug and play. Often the CD's, not conscientiously updated by the manufacturer, that come with components like this may not contain the latest drivers, and in particular those compatible withWin 7/64,although many with comparable Vista drivers will work. On my Win7/64 machine, Windows actually successfully found and installed a suitable driver which worked perfectly, after the hardware was detected on plug-in to a USB port. Just for reference, on the company's website, you can enter the product's ID and there is a specific Win 7 driver which you can download, and launch, if need be.

Win 7's FAX and SCAN is a no frills, somewhat spartan program with no fancy templates like in WINFAX PRO,(which will not operate in WIN 7, unless you opt for the Professional version which allows installation of virtual XP, and that does not necessarily guarantee that it will work as it does on a standard XP machine) but it does get the job done in a WORD-like window which gives you some control over formatting. Also, in this program, you will have to individually enter your FAX contact numbers since you can't import any other directory into the program, best as I can see, but that's no big deal, unless you have hundreds of entries! Once you have the "address book" configured, it is easy to generate and send a FAX. There are also OPTIONS menus where you can configure how the program operates, and it covers all the basic bases.

I recognize this review is perhaps as much about Win FAX and SCAN program as this USB modem, but since the latter's use will be primarily with that program, and that the product's performance is intimately correlated it, I felt it appropriate and hopefully helpful to you to tie the two together.

Since I have not had this product for an extended period of time, I obviously cannot comment on its long term reliability, but will add an update in that regard, in several months, as deemed appropriate.

BOTTOM LINE: An inexpensive, practical, effective, both computer and user friendly way for sending FAXes from Windows FAX and SCAN program. Works well in Win 7/64. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.