Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 12, English (Old Version)

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.

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.

I have an infirmity in my hands and makes it difficult to type, so I badly needed assistance from my voice recognition software package. This package is working well, it couldnt be better. However it seems determined to add unwanted words. At present, it inserts the word for over and over and over again. The program does save me time, for but for needs considerable refinement . It also skips words. Using the program requires a great deal of time for editing.

After seeing this around for the last 19 years or so, I figured they may have gotten their act together. My ex-wife warned me three years ago that it still was far from a good product. I found out quickly. It literally takes over your computer adding all kinds of bars and tools, then has you read various scripts to learn your voice. I chose three, including the hardest one. Playback time - UGLY! Who has time to continue playing with this in the hopes that someday the skies will open and I can get usable transcripts? Three weeks, three months, three years of my focusing on this software learning me? Add it to my gotcha shelf of you bought it, youre screwed and threw away your money because they dont take back opened software.

I was stuck writing a 38,000 word technical document. The only thing worse than reading one of those things is writing one. I type every day of my life, but not like this. I decided my hand cramps needed to be addressed and so I bought this program, hoping to give the hands a break now and then. Ive used Dragon products in the past (version 10) and was already familiar with the learning concept of the program. The more time you spend with it, the better it gets. I had to train version 10 for about 2 hours before it was usable in my opinion. With this one, after the initial setup (which has you read a few paragraphs to it), it was accurate to about 98%. I use a great number of complicated words in my dictation and it picked up every single one. I would highly recommend this to anyone looking to be more productive!!!

Before you purchase Dragon 12 you may want to read their privacy policies, and if youre okay with them, then youll find the program works okay with Windows 8. It is slow though. You will find that Nuance installs a 3rd party program on your computer called Common Software Manager that automatically loads upon starting your computer. According to Nuances Privacy Policy, Nuance is not responsible for how that 3rd party collects and uses information about you and your computer habits. Nuance (the maker of Dragon) Privacy Policy link: [...] Im sure those who are die hard fans of Dragon will vote this review as not helpful. That is a common practice with online reviews even when someone is giving an honest experience. However, my review is simply informational. If youre alright with the habits of Nuance then theres no problem for you, buy their software and enjoy it. It does work. Update: If you go to the Nuance community forum youll find a lot of people concerned about the forced installation of Common Software Manager. ( Forum link: [...] ) These types of 3rd party programs can, in some cases, be vectors for malware infecting your computer. The link to remove the Common Software Manager: [...]

If you are willing to spend some time on the training and getting the program used to your voice, its well worth it. It allows me to enter all kinds of information from a document into a spreadsheet, for example, without having to do that look down, read entry, look up, tab and type, look down, make sure the right thing went in the right box. Im a fast typist and I do a lot of typing, so sometimes its just fun to give my hands a rest and let Dragon do some work for me. The only downsides I find is that it still cant always keep up with me and it does have a couple of accent recognition issues, but other than that, its a fun and useful product.

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.

I only give three starts because, while i thought it was a good product, it did not serve me well for that i needed it to do. It would probably be better served to do memos, writing a novel however, is beyond its capability. I spend twice as much time proof reading and correcting errors as i did manually. I gave it three starts only because it is awesome concept that works on some levels. just not where i needed it to work.

I finally moved to a Jabra GN 9350 headset that I could use a for both my phone and with Dragon. Dont try to go any cheaper, in fact when money is no object Ill probably upgrade to a similar set up made by Plantronics. I tried going with a Bluetooth USB connection and a Plantronics Bluetooth Voyager 520, which works okay. Going to the better wireless connection of the Jabra made all the difference since then Dragon considers it as a USB connect versus a Bluetooth connection. Definitely suggest going through the training, allowing it to go through your other documents for keywords and phrases, setting up your industries keywords and phrases with the right punctuation and capitalization in the Vocabulary section. Sure can make all the difference in your dictation output. One other item, be sure you go in and delete some words that may come over from the scan of your documents that you use infrequently or may be all in caps because of a presentation or title. I think this will make your job a lot easier, I know with my stiff fingers in the amount of emailing and letters I have to do, this is the only solution that works for me.