It had to happen some time. The ISA bus, which has been a feature of PC motherboards since the beginning of the 1980s, is due to be phased out. Or rather, if the PC99 'standard' put forward by Microsoft and Intel is anything to go by, it will be gone by the end of the millennium. Not only is this a potential headache for all the third-party vendors selling weird and wonderful ISA devices, but it's a bit of a pain for modem manufacturers, too.

Aztech has seen the writing on the wall and come up with this device, a 56Kbps internal modem that uses a PCI interface rather than an ISA slot. This doesn't make any real difference to its performance, which is as good or bad as any other 56Kbps modem, once you upgrade to the V.90 spec. using the appropriate software. But it does mean that you'll be able to use this modem in next year's PCs. Assuming they have enough PCI slots, of course.

Get the latest Dell Coupons and other computer coupons at CheapStingyBargains.com.

Capable of acting as a hands-free speakerphone if you plug in a microphone and speaker(s), the Aztech 56K PCI Modem can handle voice, data and fax calls using the full-featured Trio Communications Suite that is included in the box. There's also a copy of VDOPhone, which may be handy for those users with digital video cameras attached to their PCs, along with drivers for Windows 95/98 and NT 4.0. If you have any other operating system, that's tough, as PCI modems are not renowned for their willingness to work with anything other than Windows.

But it worked fine under Windows 95 for our tests. As with any such modem, getting the full 56Kbps is pretty much impossible due to the restrictions of the analogue phone system, but the download speeds we attained were nearly always better than could be achieved using a 33.6Kbps modem, so the phone bill savings are there to be made.

For Windows users without a modem (in which case, well done for being able to read this), this Aztech PCI card should perform well. But since the ISA bus isn't quite dead yet, and is likely to die out fairly slowly, check the prices of comparable ISA modems before you buy.