Product: Leopard 56K Pocket USB Modem
From: Shark Multimedia www.sharkmm.com
Price: about US$75
For: Windows 98 and Pentium 200 MHz or higher. We also tested the unit, unsuccessfully, with Windows 2000.
Summary: Works like a charm, at least under Windows 98. It's bad news under Windows 2000. though.
Here's a strange but true story. Our test system, based on a 333MHz Celeron and an otherwise trouble-free Iwill BS100 motherboard simply wouldn't connect to our Internet service provider reliably using a SupraFAX 288 modem that, again, had previously been remarkably trouble-free. Rarely (say, one out of 10 tries), it might connect successfully, but typically, Win98 would report that the remote site had disconnected us after the usual carrier negotiation phase of a dial-up attempt.
We took the machine and modem to the Internet Service Provider's location where -- annoyingly! -- it worked without a hitch. But, back at home, it did not. We verified all the settings, moved the cables, tried different phone jacks, removed splitters and tried all the other usual fixes. We even tried calling other ISPs and found that the Supra modem had trouble connecting with any of them. To make a long story short, something apparently related to our phone line just didn't work reliably with the Supra modem.
Out of desperation, we bagged the Supra modem and replaced it with the Leopard Pocket USB 56K Modem from Shark Multimedia. The tiny translucent green unit, which looks like an iMac peripheral but, in fact, comes with Windows 98 software only, is supplied with a short USB cable, a phone cord and a CD of modem, fax and voicemail utilities. We plugged it in, inserted the CD and a moment later, were surfing along at 49.6K bits per second -- pretty much the maximum you can expect to obtain from any 56K modem. And, unlike almost every internal PCI modem on the market, this unit is not a "WinModem."
It just worked. The company says the Leopard is a low power device ideally suited for use with USB-equipped laptops. Indeed, the power consumption of the unit is remarkably low, compared to most PCMCIA based modems: less than 40 milliamps in its "on" state, and a tiny 0.5mA in sleep mode.
Our tests with Windows 2000 were, in contrast, completely unsuccessful. We could not get the OS to initialize the modem and, when we installed an INF file and its associated drivers from the CD that comes with the Pocket modem, we completely nuked Windows 2000, causing it to crash on startup with a "blue screen of death." This crash was so severe we couldn't even get Windows 2000 to start up in Safe Mode, with or without the modem connected!
Microsoft characterizes Windows 2000 as "an operating system that won't take sick days." Yeah, right!
Our only complaint with the unit, other than its incompatibility with the release version of Windows 2000, is its lack of a second connector for the attachment of a telephone handset. The Leopard 56K Pocket USB modem comes with a 5-year warranty. Recommended.
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