Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 11 [Old Version]

I am not sure how much people expect from voice recognition software. I am writing a book and for my purposes, I find the accuracy and capacity excellent. I dont expect it to be 100% accurate, and not all the commands work for me (like copying) - but the important commands worked right out of the gate. I am not trying to run my system with voice recognition, just want it to take audio dictation. So for me, especially considering the price, and that in less than an hour from start to finish I had it taking dictation at an exceptionally high level of accuracy (maybe 98%) - I am not sure how much more I could ask for. I think one should consider how clearly one speaks and if you have an accent, maybe that causes it to be less accurate. But if you speak clearly and take your time setting it up, it seems to me to be quite a wonderful technology. Best of luck!

Dragon Naturally Speaking Premium 11 is a good product, but it is not for the faint of heart and it is not for damsels who distress. I bought this product for my girlfriend because she wanted to consider typing more e-mails and possibly journalizing but had no familiarity with the keyboard. Fortunately I am computer savvy so I was able to set it up for her and show her the basics of operation. Set up would have been extremely difficult of the non-savvy person. After loading, one needs to learn to master the Dragon. This includes their training practicing but it includes a lot more afterwards. It takes a long time to learn that one can just speak into the microphone which was included, but one would not necessarily want to. Because of the lag between what is said and what the Dragon types, it get the speaker all out of timing if they watch the screen while talking. And after one or more paragraphs, one can someimes forget how they phrased it originally when trying to decode the words of the Dragon. And the paragraphs will need to be decoded. I found out that the best way to work is sentence by sentence rather than paragraph by paragraph. Speak a sentence, and then turn off the dictation. Wait a minute and then see what the Dragon types. Then you should correct it before turning on the dictation and going on to the next sentence. It makes for a long and laborious process but it is better than trying to decode an entire paragraph. It takes some time with any sophisticated program to learn their ideosyncracies. And that is true with Dragon. It has its ideosyncracies (like how it begins each transcription with your first word) but they can be learned with perseverance. One needs to be prepared to persevere. If one trains the Dragon in a constant improvement mode, then over time it does get better.

I can really see the benefit of this product. The only reason I gave it four stars is that I cant seem to get to the point of regular use. Im sure its easy once you grow accoustomed to it, but I seem to be having problems with the learning curve. Perhaps Ill purchase a training video and that will do the trick.

The product works pretty well and I really like it BUT the first time I had a technical difficulty I encountered their horrible customer service. While starting up the program I was receiving an error message that wouldnt allow me to go any further. I called technical support after telling them I uninstalled the program then tried to reinstall it but lost the serial number to do so. I had a receipt from Amazon but they(Nuance) I told me the vendor was not an authorized vendor and they would be unable to help me!!!!!!! Sure its my fault that I lost the serial number on the sleeve, but I had a copy of the receipt and had just purchased it recently! Luckily I found the serial number on the sleeve, Reinstalled the program, and I was still getting the same error message. I called technical support for assistance and they told me to run the repair program on the CD. The program still did not work after doing so and then they told me that if I wanted further assistance I would have to pay $19.99 to fix this COMMON PROBLEM on Windows 7!!!!!!!!! Extremely frustrating!

Im writing this review using Dragon Premium 11. It seems to work pretty well for me. I can speak at a normal speed, and what I say is, I would say about 95% accurate. Im still trying to train it to understand my local jargon. To know when to capitalize formal names, or acronyms. Once I get the training part down Im sure I would give it another star. This is my second time using Dragon Premium. I recall using it many years ago, and the accuracy was terrible, but it is now much improved, and worthwhile for the money.

I love the fact that I dont have to type my papers, but the program took some getting use to. The supplied headphones did not work well because it distorted the speech to such an extent that the program got the words wrong. I then bought an Andrea stereo headset and this was 90% better. Now I plan to upgrade my program but havent done so because the manufacturer wants full price. I paid full price upon original purchase. The upgrade should give the consumer a price break. I would have updated annually otherwise. As it is Im holding back on this one.

First of all Im writing this review with Dragon. Right out-of-the-box with a little training I was getting far more accurate text than when I type. Not sure how to measure but mistakes are few and far between. When I first considered purchasing Dragon I was concerned with the several negative reviews. I was encouraged however with a response from Nuance indicating that they would refund the purchase. I went to the link and saved it just in case. Sometimes I do notice that it becomes very slow. Keeping an eye on my task manager I find that some other program like Carbonite is running at the same time. So I can simply kill that program and continue. I keep my CPU monitor open so that I can keep track of any conflicting programs that might be running. So my experience has been very positive and consequently I recommend it without reserve. Incidentally, I first installed it on XP and then upgraded Windows 7. Dragon performed well with both operating systems.

I just upgraded from 10 to 11 premium and it seems to work great. it is faster, works better, and makes far less mistakes as version 10. I see a lot of people here complaining about it not working correctly and being buggy, I do see what they are seeing. I did deactivate my antivirus during the install, and my computer has all the windows updates needed before I installed. I also have updated all the installed software to make sure it was all up to date. I have a vista 64 bit system upgraded to windows 7 ultimate. I do know that ultimate has more compatibility than lesser versions. I use an hp system. I am also using the wireless version of the product running it into a usb 2.0 port. At first there were some small issues with the software, but after I used it for about 1 week they all seemed to go away. It seems like a nice upgrade from version 10 and things are better and smoother. I would recommend buying it. I only gave it 4 stars because the software is and always has been less than perfect. I think that it is going to be many years before this type of software works perfectly every time, so if that is what you are expecting you will be disappointed. Also, it takes some patience, so be prepaired to have some...

I was a little apprehensive when I read Dragon NaturallySpeaking for Dummies and it said not to expect much if you use Biblical phrases. I had ordered Dragon for the express purpose of writting Bible Studies so I thought that I had really made a mistake. But Dragon learns easily and it incorporated the vocabulary from previously written studies and seemed to know what word to use when I spoke it. I had to train it a little on Ezekiel but it got Jehovah and Hezekiah right off. All in all I am very happy with Dragon. But dont order the Dragon for Dummies book - it is about 6 versions behind. Also do not order the Sennheiser headset microphone that is listed in Amazon as it is for wireless (even the one that doesnt say wireless) and the connector does not work properly. Speech Recogition Solutions has the same microphone with a standard plus.

Ive used every version of Naturally Speaking since V2 (c 1997). This version is somewhat more accurate, but has several bugs--disappointing from Nuance. 1. a random character gets added beyond the dictation. If I delete it, another character pops up. 2. selecting a group of words and dictating over them (if I do not want to use the correct function) often leaves letters of the old phrase or does not space properly. 3. occasionally the correction function appears to get stuck and generates an internal error. I have to close down the program and restart. 4. save user profile often closes the program 5. the playback function on the correction window is frequently misaligned with the text, unlike in prior versions where this was rare. 6. I have not been able to complete additional training--the system crashes prior to saving the new speech files. Overall, V11 is promising, but I would wait until a service pack or revised version is available