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Review On The Bilionton V.90 CF Modem
I had just save enough money to buy anykind of CF modem when just so happen Pocket PC 2003 came out. I was so excited when Dell announced that the previous Axim X5 can upgrade to ppc 2003. When I heard that previous owner had to depart their own hard earn cash to upgrade their Axim..I was kind a reluctant too because I just bought the CF modem which cost around 95$(there goes my lunch money for the whole month) and I know some of the Axim users or many knows why some of them also didn't want't to let go of their own money even if the upgrade only cost 29$ , because comeonnnnn!!! Dell could give it for free if they want to!!. But I would bought it quickly if I haven't bought the CF modem.For now the upgrade would have to wait as I had something else in mine to buy.
Why did I buy the CF modem?, well that's the same question why did I buy the Axim. I wanted to but the CF modem because I wanted to used full potential of the Axim's CF and CF I/O slot. I can buy CF memory which is cheaper but at this time I didn't really need more memory( for now!). WiFi and Bluetooth?..... Hmm .... if I bought them, then I had to bought a router for both of them which will couse even more. So maybe next month or year.....
For the first time ever I didn't check any source about buying or read any review to buy peripherals for the Axims because their isn't any good review or source I can find on the Net. So I hope I give a good review for you all to reed.
The Bilionton CF modem is a thin modem and has a new design( older CF slot are more thick but not as long). Like the SD slot, when you insert the CF modem into the Axim's CF slot, the Axim would turn it's self on and froze for a couple of second because the CF modem is trying to install it's self on the Axim. How do I know the Axim froze....well when I tried to switch off the Axim , it wouldn't turn off for a few seconds. But eventough its thin, the modem is little bit longer then older design of the CF modem..
When you insert the CF card that attaches to the modem, it would stick out a little bit which unlike CF memory card which would plunged into the CF slot fully. The phone jack is located on the right side of the modem which had a snake like head look alike to it which can be closed when not in used. Eventough the deign of the phone jack is one of the reason why the modem is thin, I always afraid that I might brake or snapped the head that can be closed and opened on the telephone jack.
Battery life on the Axim..eventough the specs indicates that the modem would consumed less power (under 164mA) , surfing the net about an hour or so with the batter life of the Axim between 90% - 80%, the bettery life were down to about 70% -60% or greater!. Wow...the modem consumed much more of my Axim's battery life then playing a half an hour of mp3's on Windows Media Player.
There is a green LED light on the left sight of the modem which would glow green when is trying to connect or connected and would turn it self off when disconnected. Eventough the green LED is a nice touch to the modem but it's had only help me a little bit because I can't even see the LED when it's trying to notify me if the modem are still connected or not because the LED is so small and the manufacture had placed the LED to dip into the modem.
Is it fast as it's claims to be (56kbps)...hmmm... Surfing the net using Netfront 3.0 surely are more faster then IrDa on my Nokia 7160 handphone. Using Pocket Internet Explorer is also fast but not as fast as Netfront 3.0. But it really depands on how high is you're boud rate.
The great thing about the Billionton CF modem is that it comes with free PCMCIA CF adapter that can be plunged into a 68-pin PCMCIA slot. It can also be used in a notebook PC with PCMCIA slot and as usual it come with one RJ-11 female connector , Diskket floppy for the driver on the PC and one manual.
EXPERIENCE:
I had the modem in my shirt pocket for a while and in that morning when I went to washed my shirt in the washing mechine..I forget that the modem was still in it!!!! AAAAA!!!!. The modem was weettttttttt. I pray and pray that the modem would still work and when I insert the modem into the CF slot, my Axim pop out a not and it said that the CF slot can't identified the card!. I was soooo angry that day because I just bought the modem for about 3 days and now is dead!. I even blame it to God which is soooooo unfair to him because I know that I'm the one who had done the stupid mistake!!. I even didn't spoke to any of my friends that day. But with such pain comes joy when the next day, I tried to insert the modem into my Axim's slot and the Axim recognized it!. Wow I was sooo lucky ... from that day on I tried not to loosed my tamper so harshly aseptically to the people above because I don't want's what had happened to "Bruce all Mighty" happened to me!. Eventough I still had the one year warranty , doing a stupid mistake and now had to wait another month to get a replacement....think about it.
So...would I recommend buying it?...Yes!. That is if you want a modem for you're pocket PC.
Pros:
-Thin
-Can width stand anything( with the test of my washing machine of course)
-Small
-Light( doesn't fill a thing when insertd on the CF slot)
-Easy installation( just slide the card in and puff you're on)
-Free PCMCIA CF adapter
-Support video Conferencing
Cons
-Long
-Would drain my Axim's battery( but this isfor me tough as this is my first modem)
-LED to small and placed to dip in the modem
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Linear Mode
