Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 12, English (Old Version)

Its a interesting and useful piece of technology, however every piece of technology has its flaws. The headset works well for the most part, however there are a notable amount of times where the speech isnt recognized. Had a couple problems with text to speech as well.

Really need to continue to utilize and better understand the process. Was dissapointed that the training cd did not come with it. I see where I have to pay an additional $25. However, look forward to using it. My expectations may be a little high as I am trying to work it with a writing program and have not yet succeeded.

This is a good way to talk and compose a report or book. It does take some extra effort to educate the program to the persons speech pattern and to find ways to correct the errors that find their way into the document. At times it is a slow process, but as the program and the writer continue to practice it gets better and manageable.

I dictated an email message after the 15 minute initial training set up and it did about 90% accuracy or more. I was flat amazed. I dont dictate as well as I speak especially when Im reading the words I am dictating. If I did additional training it would produce much better accuracy. Im waiting for a version which automatically inserts punctuation and corrects grammar. This software is so advanced, Im predicting that day will be here soon. I use Logitech wireless H800 headsets as recommended in the list of qualified headsets. I have noisy fans, but the noise cancellation of the H800 eliminates the background noise. I have an IVY Bridge 3770K CPU with 8 GB of RAM. Im sure that helps a lot, too.

Ive been using Dragon NaturallySpeaking since 1997 and will continue to do so. My policy is not to upgrade every time a new version comes out - its never worth it! Having use the preferred edition of 9 for a little over 4 years, I am extremely pleased with the accuracy and speed of Dragon 12. It still, however, has difficulty typing text into certain Internet places and, like before, the dictation box doesnt always help. 2 other small complaints: not enough selections in the correction box and no ability to select a phrase and have Dragon capitalize that phrase in title case. I used to be able to just say caps that, but no more. I will gladly find my way around the little problems, however, in order to gain the improved accuracy. And the Amazon price is great!

Takes a fair amount of time to learn how to use, but is good with text such as email or word processing. Does not fit my needs for use with spreadsheet programs or statistical packages (Excel, SPSS, R, etc). Quirky operating process, for example when I first opened it, the microphone will receive the first sentence I say, and then just not accept any more, so I have to turn off the microphone, and then re-turn it on, and it seems to work--why? Another irritation is that for some applications it will pop up a dictation box and record your dictation, but about one out of every five times, when you hit the transfer button to send it to the application you had the active cursor in, the text just goes out into the ether, yes, it disappears, and then you have to start all over again. My arm is in a sling for a few months, so it makes a big difference for emails and wordprocessing documents, but beyond that does not help with the majority of my work.

Ive been using Dragon NaturallySpeaking since version 3. Many people try this program and almost immediately stop using it. when I first began using it years ago I did the same thing. I would put it on my computer system, go through a lengthy training process to teach it how I speak. The training process teaches it how you pronounce different words and it used to take about an hour. While there is still a training period it now takes roughly 5 min. in the past even after training the program to recognize your voice through that hour-long process it would still make many mistakes. And like most people I just got frustrated and uninstalled it. If I gave this five stars you know there has to be a bright side coming. :-) One day, back in version 3, I decided I was going to use it no matter what. And Im glad I did. What frustrates people the most about using voice dictation software is that its not 100% correct all the time. Now a big however. However, when the program makes a mistake (and it holds true right up to the newest version) instead of getting frustrated all you have to do is correct the mistake. Teach the program what you wanted it to type as opposed to what it did. Once you do that it usually doesnt make the same mistake again. As an example, I have a medical condition called Ménières disease. I guarantee you the word Ménières is not in any standard dictionary that computer uses. So the very first time I was dictating a letter and said the word Ménières the computer typed the words many ears. Coincidently, Ménières disease does happen to be a problem with the inner ear but the term many ears isnt certainly what I was looking for. To correct the error went like this: say to the computer select many ears, then say spell that and a dialog box pops up and all you do is speak into the microphone and spell the word correctly. In my case it was to say cap m e n i e r e s, say the words click train and the computer automatically clicks a button labeled train and then you speak the word that you just spelled and it enters it into its dictionary. And it will then replace the incorrect spelling with the correct one automatically and you can continue dictating. When people read this in the manual that is usually what deters them from using the program. I like everyone else thought I was going to be spending all my time saying that entire paragraph to correct a word. Also like everyone else I thought I didnt have the time. The thing is, to actually perform the actions that I described in the previous paragraph actually takes less than 15 seconds and once you do but you dont have to do it ever again. I have created a website dedicated to information on Ménières disease so the term Ménières came up constantly. After the first time it made the mistake of spelling Ménières as many ears it never made the mistake again. Being a website dedicated to a rare medical condition I used the term Ménières probably 100 to 120 times. Like I said, after correcting it the first time it never made the mistake of misspelling Ménières again. In this review alone Ive used the word Ménières at least 6 to 8 times. This review is being dictated through Dragon NaturallySpeaking. If you do see a mistake in any of the words in this review its due to my laziness, not the program. I say that because besides just speaking into a microphone and watching the words appear on screen you can even use the program in another way to check what youve written (or what its written). Both the premium and the home versions of this program have the ability to read what has been typed out loud. The only reason Im not doing it is because Im starting to run late for an appointment and lost track of time. So there isnt time to have it read the entire review back to me and listen for errors. But once more, if you read this back to me and there was an error all he would have to do is go back and correct it and it wouldnt happen again. When I started using this program it was for work purposes but I didnt think much of it when I stopped using it because I typed 111 words per minute accurately. What can I say, I did a lot of typing so my speed just naturally built up. Another however coming. However, now I have osteoarthritis and not only do I type very slowly but its very painful. Using NaturallySpeaking once I start the program I dont have to touch the keyboard. It even has an entire set of commands for several of the most common web browsers so you can use it to surf the Internet as well. And that is also in either the Home or Premium versions of this program. As of today (April 9, 2014) Amazon is selling the previous version (11) for an extremely reduced price. While I purchased the Premium 12 version for a few extra features I found I really dont use them so I went back and purchased two copies of version 11 (I have multiple computers). As THE final note, which ever version of the program you by, it also comes with a plug-in headset. I didnt feel like sitting a few feet from my computer – which is the length of the cable to the headset – so I simply purchased a wireless one for $20. But you do have everything you need to get started right out of the box. Would I recommend it? I own four copies… you guess…

I chose this item cause I HATE to type and thought this would be perfect in helping me get caught up with my work at the office. However I spent more time fixing the mistakes and getting frustrated when Dragon couldnt understand what I was saying that it now sits in its original box on a shelf. It sounded awesome and I bragged to everyone about ordering it. Now everyone is asking about Dragon and laughing when I say, if I took the time to learn it maybe it would be good but I dont have the time that is needed. Oh and I did not get it at the great sale prices it is currently selling for ....so yes I got duped hopefully by reading this you wont. Like I said if you have time to learn all its tricks Im sure it would be awesome but when one see online there are actual training classes for the software I should have known.....and I work in IT.

Ive set this software up on several computers. If the user follows the guidelines that are clearly laid out for setting up voice recognition, it works just fine. I will add that the majority of people I know dont use it enough to fully understand how it functions. They dont spend enough time with it to master it. They get frustrated and set it aside. Another example of exercise bike software - it is capable of great things, but ends up in the corner collecting dust due to user apathy.

All the advertising and videos in this made it seem like this was a easy to use, user-friendly product. Its not overly technical, but its not as easy as they make it seem. Also, so far it has been terribly inefficient and inaccurate. I bought this product with the hope of improving my efficiency. However it seems a lot of work is needed upfront to get this working, and at the moment its time I dont have. So it is currently sitting in the box. Waste of money.