Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 11 [Old Version]

When you buy software like this the obvious intention is to make your life a little easier and have things done a little quicker where time counts, time is money, is a reality. But if youre expecting to come right out of the gate running twice or three times as fast as you have been your expectations are too high. Like anything thats new, (new to me anyway), theres a learning period. Theres an X amount of time that it takes to learn how to use the software, and in this case, also for the software to learn how to respond to you. The incredible thing about Dragon Premium 11.5 is that it has a very fast learning curve. I can say this unequivocally because I owned and used Dragon Naturally Speaking Home 11.5 edition. That edition is considerably slower in learning and I can only surmise that Nuance simply didnt put as much software information into Dragon Naturally Speaking Home edition as they did in the Premium edition. So when you get Dragon Premium out-of-the-box and you set up your first profile pay particular attention to something called Words and Phrases and instructions about Vocabulary options because these things are very important in how fast Dragon is going to learn your style of writing and speaking. Because its all about time, (how much time you spend speaking into the microphone and allowing Dragon to listen & learn), when you get DNS Premium 11.5 going on your computer you actually can have it up to its 98% accuracy rate within three or four hours of dictation time! There are a number of things that you should know about Dragons way of doing things and the manual isnt always the best way to go on some of these operations. I suggest very strongly that you pay a visit to KnowBrainer.com and read a few of the posts regarding merging other vocabulary and profile options of previous DNS programs. If you had a previous version of DNS on your computer its not always best to carry the profile over and KnowBrainer.com is a true must in my opinion. The information that you can get is invaluable in forum of that website. As for DNS Premium 11.5, I strongly recommend this program to anyone whos looking for speech to text software but doesnt want to spend $500 or more on some of the higher-end offers out there. One more word of advice; I went through several headsets before I settled on one that works for me, (the one I got was Plantronics 995 USB wireless headset). Im not saying that it doesnt have its faults, (its pretty heavy, it encompasses the entire ear on both sides, and can get somewhat uncomfortable after a while), but what is important is that whatever headset you do get, make sure that you place your microphone near your nose or nostrils. The placement of the microphone near the nostrils is crucial because it permits your pronunciations to be less nasal like. Dragon instructs that you place the microphone 1 inch from your mouth, (the corner of your mouth), but I think thats just a generic placement and I found that to be not nearly as effective as placing it between my nose and my mouth closer to my nostrils. The headset/microphone that you choose will be very important and play a big part in the accuracy of your speech to text software. This is also true of digital recorders. I use the Sony ICD SX712 but there are better, if not more expensive, digital voice recorders out there. Recommendations that Nuance give for which digital recorders and headsets to use are not based on any real research at all. There is more info on that fact in Knowbrainer.com. If you go to KnowBrainer.com you will find a far more accurate breakdown of the best headsets and digital voice recorders to use for DNS Premium as well as KnowBrainer software. I do give DNS Premium 11.5 all five stars and I also want to give a big thumbs up to their Customer Support Techs. Not everyone has had great results with them or the software but I think a lot has to do with the little things that I touched on and for which I believe they may have overlooked. That and the lack of patience will likely give you a bad experience. Oh and by the way, I did this entire review with DNS Premium 11.5. I used the digital recorder for most of it and the transcription had 4 errors. Two were definitely due to my poor annunciation, and the other two were capitalization errors. And Ive only had Dragon Premium for about 2.5 weeks! Try it.

I just got my Dragon version 11 over Labor Day weekend, and have been using it with my computer. I used version 9 five years ago and found it too frustrating with all of the inaccuracies. Recently, my orthopedic surgeon recommended version 11, as his advice to me was to save your hands for something more meaningful than computer work, such as playing a musical instrument, as I do suffer from repetitive stress injuries from all the computer typing. I am thrilled with this version of Dragon, and almost right out-of-the-box, I was able to dictate an entire recipe into a Word document with only two or three minor mistakes. By the way, I have dictated my entire review here using just my voice.

I bought this as a Christmas gift for someone who has been talking for years about writing a book but never took action. I read all of the reviews carefully before purchasing Dragon because the recipient is not particularly proficient with computers. After a month, he is still having great difficulty with it. I am sure that if he were take the time to use the tutorial and/or peruse the online manual at least some of his troubles would be resolved. Unfortunately, he is one of those I dont need no stinkin instructions type of guys. I guess I was overly optimistic about his ability to make use of Dragon. Just from my sessions trying to assist him, I notice that Dragon does take time learning, both on the part of the person and the software itself. Conclusion: be careful who you buy this for as it is nowhere near as easy to use as it first appears.

Im still trying to learn to use the software but became extremely frustrated when the included headphone and microphone broke after 2 days (headphones worked, mic did not - on 2 different computers). I bought a different headphone and mic set, so recommend that future buyers buy a different headphone/mic set rather than count on the one included with the product from Amazon. The software is adequate for what I need (dictating into word documents).

Ive only had this product for a short time, but I love it! Very easy to train and Ive been pretty happy with the accuracy overall. Whenever I have some free time, I do read additional scripts of increasing levels of complexity in order to increase my vocabulary, and I have found that since I bought a USB adapter for the included headset that my accuracy have improved even further. The only thing Im getting used to is speaking the way you type. Otherwise, you end up with an ndless sentence, but for what Im using it for, its still much faster than typing everything word for word. I love it, and have recommended it to several friends and family members!

I am a traveling consultant. Since I began using Dragon Naturally Speaking, I have been able to increase my written output of both client required updates and reports as well as all the internal stuff that goes with a life on the road - without adding any time to my week. Try it, youll like it! Dont be shy or impatient - take the time to work with the initial user profile setup routine. Once the Dragon learns your patterns, it is almost foolproof.

I did not expect the product to work as easily as shown on TV, but have discovered that learning and remembering all the proper commands is more challenging than I expected. The speech recognition works, but sometimes it confuses words and at times confuses commands for dictation. I am certain I will master it, just not as quickly as I hoped.

The product is inexpensive and works well if you are willing to spend the time training it and correcting every grammatical error every time they occur and use a spell checker. If you are not willing to do that you will be frustrated. I use this product for medical transcription and once you add commonly used medical words into the vocabulary it works OK after continual training. It works best using templates. However, if you are viewing images in one window while dictating a report in another this is not the product for you. Only Dragon Medical works in hidden mode and this version cannot be upgraded for that function, so I have to rate this product as only above average. Technical support is painfully slow and not always accurate by email.

I purchased Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 premium over the weekend and received version 11.5 on Tuesday. It installed on my Windows 7 PC without a hitch, and also installed on my Windows Vista laptop, however, the analog headset that came with the application did not work on my laptop. For that, I had to use a USB headset that I had laying around. After setting up the microphone and going through the training, I began to simply dictate into the DragonPad that comes with the software, just to see how DNS would do compared with the Windows 7 and Windows Vista speech recognition software. I was very pleasantly surprised. After having been diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome, cubital tunnel syndrome, arthritis of the wrist, and a bone spur in the wrist joint, I was desperate for a voice recognition application that was reliable and fast. Unfortunately Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 is quite sluggish on my laptop, although the laptop is several years old and only has two gigabytes of memory. DNS runs much better and faster on my Windows 7 desktop. In fact, it runs so well that I convinced my employer to purchase a copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 professional for my use at work. I installed that today, and spent the day productively and without pain! Although the headset that came with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 premium is fairly decent and passes the tests, I purchased an Andrea headset from KnowBrainer which is not only comfortable, but it seems to be more accurate too. My biggest concern at the time I purchased Dragon NaturallySpeaking was compatibility with the software that I use. The problem I ran into with the Windows 7 voice recognition software was that it only works reliably with Microsoft applications, and some of my favorite applications for writing were not Microsoft. The Windows 7 VR software did not work at all with my main application, and so I had to dictate into notepad and then copy and paste it into my preferred application. Another annoying thing about the Windows software was its habit of inserting a blank space after an open quote. Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 does a much better job of punctuating my sentences properly, especially with regard to quotations and capitalizing the beginning of sentences. So far, the biggest difference between the premium version and the professional version that I have noticed is the ability for the professional version to create macros. For instance, I could say the acronym of my companys product, and my custom macro would insert the product name complete with proper trademark symbols. Of course, this is only my first full day using it, so I have much more to learn. So far, I am a very happy customer. *Dictated using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 premium with six dictation mistakes. 5/17/12: DNS has a habit of not capitalizing new sentences in some of my applications (Arbortext, for instance). Selecting the word and saying Cap that does NOT cap it, even though the little command box says Cap that as expected. I have to manually change the letter to a capital, putting further strain on my injured hands. Its annoying, but Im still loving DNS. :) Ive gotten into the habit of using DragonPad or Dictation Box for those applications, but theres one in particular, WriteItNow (which I use on my personal computer), that actually causes the Dictation Box to freeze and become unresponsive. While I like the Transfer button on the Dictation Box, that also closes the dialog, and so DragonPad is usually my choice. 5/29/12: I got a new laptop with 6GB RAM, and what a difference! Dragon is like lightning on this thing!

This is the best money I have ever spent for a program. I had read all the reviews and researched prices and this was such a deal I could not pass it up. I review and type medical records, so this was a huge time saver for me. Now instead of me typing, the dragon does all the work. You do have to train your dragon, but that has been half the fun of this program. To give an example, I was using a medical word parenthesis (numbness) and the dragon translated it to a pair of thieves in Paris!! Actually cracked me up trying to figure out what I said!! But then you just click on the word (or words in this case) and spell the word you wanted, and then train the dragon by saying that word. The next time, no matter how badly I said the word, the dragon got it right. You find yourself learning to enunciate words better. Another example was, syncope and the dragon typed, sticky feet. It is well worth letting the dragon search your files of word documents and emails to find words which it saves. Each time you add new words, he remembers it! I find myself asking, what took me so long to buy a program like this. Seriously, I do not know of other programs like this but when I searched voice activated programs on Google this one jumped off the page. I am thrilled with the results. Since purchasing it, I found a lot of my friends and family had either used it in college, or are using it today. Go for it, you will be glad you did. Watch for the sale though, because this program was $99.99 one night and $199.99 another. I got it for the $99.99 and it included the microphone and headset.