Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is a breakthrough product.I had Dragon version 3 on a Pentium 2, and it was so frustrating that I gave up.I think that was most people's response to earlier versions of voice recognition software.Part of the problem was processor speed and memory.Now, with a 1.7 GHz Pentium 4 and 256 MB it is at last a reasonable and workable software.
However the training described in the advertising is optimistic unto misleading.The user files continue to accumulate corrections and understandings of the user's speech.It is after several hours of dictating and making corrections that it becomes reliable.The longer one uses it the fewer edits one needs to make.
By pronouncing clearly and rapidly the user can get very high accuracy.It is counter-intuitive that it should be more accurate for more rapid, more continuous speech, but that is how it works.
The integration of the Preferred version with Word, Excel, Access, and Internet Explorer makes it useful and convenient, and keeps it from being a novelty. For instance, I am dictating this in IExplorer and it has required very few edits.I expect that dictated documents will always require some edits but it will save tremendous amounts of typing and time.
For people who do large amounts of typing this product is invaluable - a real breakthrough.The few hours spent training the software will be rewarded amply by months spent dictating instead of typing.
I strongly recommend using a USB microphone.With an analog microphone the user-trained files are dependent on the sound card.With USB they can be copied to other computers, such as laptops.(And you thought cellphone users were annoying - just wait until people are dictating to laptops on airplanes.)
If one uses Microsoft Outlook for correspondence, be sure to select Word as your editor because Dragon does not work with the default editor. (Tools-->Options-->Mail Format-->Use Word as Editor).
Downsides:
This is billed as protecting one's hands from wearing out from overuse.But bear in mind - voices wear out too.
If one sets Dragon to maximum accuracy it becomes somewhat frustratingly slow.This is not caused by insufficient memory as I thought (I added 512 MB - didn't help).It is a processor speed limitation.Which I take to mean that the glory days of voice recognition lie ahead of us. When Intel's and AMD's marketing wars will have brought us 10 , 20, or 100 GHz processors, we will be able to turn to our "Scotty" computer and say, as we always dreamed of saying, "Beam me up, Scotty"- and it will do it.
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Dragon NaturallySpeaking 6 PreferredProduct Description: Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred speech recognition software enables small office, home office, business, and educational users to create documents, spreadsheets, and e-mail by voice command. Integrated with Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, and Corel WordPerfect, Dragon NaturallySpeaking works with virtually all Windows-based applications.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking lets you listen to incoming e-mail and documents being read aloud, search the Web, access information, chat with instant messenger programs, or navigate Web pages by speaking URLs and links. Create dictation shortcuts that enable you to insert blocks of texts or bitmaps--such as your name, title, and signature--by voice. You can even dictate directly into a PC or a ScanSoft-approved handheld digital recorder.
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