Nuance Dragon Dragon NaturallySpeaking Home 13 (Old Version)

I bought this product ten days ago because Im dyslexic and I wanted to write faster and with greater accuracy. The same day I purchased a new laptop that runs on Windows 10. I realized that because Windows 10 is rolling out slowly, Dragon NaturallySpeaking Home 13 software might not be compatible with the new OS. I checked the Nuance Communications website and it confirmed that Dragon 13 is Windows 10 compatible. The thing is, it isnt. After installing the program and performing a microphone check, I found that the software was not only completely unresponsive to voice commands, it also crashed at random intervals. I uninstalled and reinstalled the program, purchased a different headset and deactivated the Cortana application in an attempt to get Dragon to work. None of my attempts were successful. I sent a message explaining the situation to Nuances tech support staff. After repeatedly explaining that I had already employed the above troubleshooting methods online and over the phone and proving that my microphone works, I was e-mailed a download link for what I assumed was an updated version of Dragon 13. In actuality, it was just an exact copy of the program I had already purchased. The version of Dragon I was sent was also completely unresponsive and buggy. When I relayed this information and my frustration at being sent a copy of a program I had already proved did not work on my machine to Nuances tech support, they stopped responding to my inquiries. Subsequently, I used Google to see if anyone else had encountered the same problem I was dealing with. I discovered that Nuances tech support forums were filled with complaints from other people who had run into the same issue and had also been blown off by the companys tech support staff. It was then that I gave up trying to make Dragon 13 work and returned the software. As near as I can tell, the program worked optimally with older versions of Windows, but despite the lies on Nuances website, Dragon 13 is completely nonfunctional on Windows 10, so buyer beware.

I reduced my review from 5 to 3 stars because it has so many problems and they dont fix it. I have to ctrl+alt+del and force stop it. There is no way to make it shut off. It has also stopped backing up my files and I dont know how to make it restart again. If they fix this stuff, I will change my review back to 5 stars. I doubt it..... I am actually using NaturallySpeaking to write this review. I had Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9.0 before this, and it did pretty good. But I am shocked and amazed, and how awesome this program is! It is so good it can even tell the difference between end, and and. I put in these little marks because I dont know what you call them. LOL! It can even get things like (egr) correctly. I think this must be what Google uses to do their voice searches. I am doing emails, web searches, reviews like this one, chat sessions, and pretty much anything else that needs typing. Since I type with three fingers on my left hand (because I have my set up for mouse keyboard gaming) I type so slow its pathetic. But I can do this review in about a minute! And thats pretty awesome!

Im dictating this review so you can get a sense of how accurate it actually can be. I usually need to make at least two or three minor corrections in one short paragraph. Dragon is a godsend for people who really have problems with their arms and cant type or input text the usual way. Dragon 13 does seem to be a improvement over Dragon 12; theres a considerable uptake in speed. A huge problem remains that it is practically dysfunctional in Microsoft Word. I use the dictation box or pad and then copy and paste my text into my word file. I did not have any particular problems with the installation, beyond the fact that it took a very long time (a few hours). Dictating this review, there was one major error: Dragon typed men instead of improvement. However, Dragon is typing the words almost as quickly as I can say them. I like that a lot.

Firstly, dont purchase the disc + headset bundle. The software already comes with a headset included in the box, a fact which I discovered after ordering and receiving the bundle and ending up with an extra headset. So ordering the bundle will result in you receiving the software and the headset it comes with in one box, and another box with a second headset. That offer is quite deceiving. Despite being annoyed at spending a little extra money, I didnt consider it worth returning the extra headset since I got it all on sale for a decent price, and because I may end up needing a replacement headset at some point anyway. As for the speech recognition itself, its decent. Not as amazing as I was hoping; I do have to spend a little time correcting mistakes, and it also slows you down to have to speak the punctuation out loud. But this is the first speech recognition software Ive used, and Im betting as far as speech recognition goes, its good. The uses of the Home version are kind of limited because of it not being compatible with many programs, meaning it will not enter the text directly into said programs/emails/etc. for you. But it can still be used pretty much anywhere by putting the insertion point where you want the text, and then as you speak your speech will appear in Dragons dictation box, from which you can easily transfer it to your designated spot with a simple click of the Transfer button. So, I found that pretty cool. My main reason for getting Dragon is Im a transcriptionist and my hands tend to get tired and stiff from typing. I was hoping that me dictating and then editing would be at least as quick as me typing, as well as sparing my hands from strain, but so far, its not really been worth it due to the time it takes to continually transfer the speech from the dictation box into my program, which gets me behind from dictating the words from the audio Im listening to, so then I have to skip back the audio once the dictation box gets out of the way, plus edit any mistakes I see, and I actually find it easier to manually insert punctuation when I review each portion that I transfer rather than speaking all of the punctuation. Eventually I may be able to make it work out better, but so far, it slows me down a bit, so I only use it sometimes. Just figured Id explain that for anyone else considering this for transcription. But the speech recognition aspect is decent as long as youre willing to check for mistakes. There tend to be at least a couple or few mistakes per paragraph in my experience so far.

Let me first say I never write reviews.... So, this really had to be junk for me to even do this. So, don’t waste your Money!! I spent almost an hour trying to train this software for my voice using the tutorials and going through the training (I don’t have an accent ,I speak very clearly and do not Studder) It only gets half of what you’re saying correctly and you have to repeat yourself 10 times its more frustrating than it is helpful. Normally I would have taken the $40 loss and moved on but what ticked me off most about this company was that when you install the software it asks you if you want to upgrade to the latest version of the software (That it understands you much better with less mistakes) which is normally $300.00 but for only $150.00 you can get a version that works (Really??) .... so this is clearly a Bait and switch. Why are they still selling software they know really doesn’t work? ....to sell you an upgrade that is three times the cost of the software you bought from them and trying to make it sound like a Deal. So, unless you are prepared to spend $200 to $300 for this product and I’m still not sure if the $300 even works. don’t bother!! My 2 Cents.

Works great. Ive even used it to voice command Assassins Creed Syndicate. Placed on commands it works great to activate eagle vision, the rope launcher, or weapons etc. Just make sure you have plenty of RAM. Ive used this to dictate a book section that I needed, emails and other applications. Remember that the more you use it the better it gets. It does take a while to get used to the commands, but it recognized most words and is easy to correct using the mouse if needed. CONS: The microphone that comes with the product. You will get error messages that the sound is too low no matter what you do. I recommend the purchase of a USB microphone adapter. It will solve that issue and is cheaper than buying a usb headset. Will also allow you to listen to movies, games etc through the headphones which is great if you are a night owl like me and dont want to keep everyone else awake watching a movie at 3am. Would recommend for anyone who needs to do a lot of dictation such as converting hand written journals and letters to type etc.

This program used to be amazing! However, this Home v. 13 never learned our voices well enough to function so it went unused. Calling Nuance proved useless because they no longer support this version. If you are going to purchase this program, seriously consider purchasing the most recent version so you get the support you need. This is the 2nd edition of this I have purchased because the first version worked flawlessly.

I live with a disability that prevents me from using your standard keyboard with relative ease. Dragon NaturallySpeaking has been a bit of a lifesaver, for me. Granted, there are some issues with the way it understands me (even after Ive trained the program, twice). However, as far as speech to text goes, this program is the best! I also think that the fact that Im using a web cam microphone might be why Im having some of the issues that I have. The software does come with its own microphone headset, I just dont use it because it keeps me tethered to the computer. If anybody can recommend a good wireless microphone headset (or microphone) that I can wear with my bowler hat, Id be appreciative!

I had a very unexpected stroke several moths ago and my left hand still isnt completely back so this has been a real help. Except when I edit -- and I admit I do that a lot -- it cant seem to remember where we are on a page so I almost always have to go back and fix something or other manually. Maybe I dont speak Dragon well enough yet.