Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 11 Student Edition [Old Version]

The verification process is a bit of a pain. Basically, you have to select your school from a list of choices. You have to fill in your name, and as faculty I had to select which department Im in. It then asked me to send a PDF file of my school ID with the current date. Other options would be (as faculty, I cant speak for students) a recent pay stub or a letter from HR verifying my employment. I didnt have any of these readily available, so I submitted the online form without them. I was careful to use my EDU e-mail address. I then received a message to this EDU address stating that I needed to submit the above information before I would receive the necessary serial number. From reading other reviews, I decided simply to wait. Sure enough, the next day I received the serial number without having taken any further action. With the serial number I installed the product without any hassles. In other words, the only information I ended up submitting was the name of my school, my name, and my EDU e-mail address. Nothing more. The process took 24 hours. Ive used version 10 for a couple of years and I think it was version 8 that I used before that. Im happy with version 11 so far. It navigates both Explorer and Firefox better than version 10 and I like the text entry for Gmail. Accuracy is roughly the same or better, but overall speed is faster than before. Some commands are still cumbersome but overall this product is an improvement. I use a high-quality microphone which is important, as well as learning the software, by which I mean speaking clearly. Check out Emicrophones.com for great mic and soundcard information. I use the Sennheiser ME3 which is really expensive. The cheapie provided will work also, but serious users will need an upgrade eventually, and the mic lasts forever. And make sure you have the recommended specifications for your computer. Goodluck!

As other reviewers have said, it is impossible to verify the software for the student edition. Had to return it to amazon after many failed emails and calls to try get it verified. Worthless if I cant use it!

Nuance yes.... I got this originally to help take notes in lecture classes but it does not translate other people talking just you. That didnt work and you had to read a page or more for it to recognize your voice .... really that long... and its hard to delete from your system. Might work for some but not for me.

I was very disappointed in the software. I purchased this product under the assumption I would be able to use this for my graduate classes. My plan was to record the lectures and then the software would transcribe the lectures for notes. Did not happen. You would have to make a profile for each voice to be transcribed, and even then I am not sure it would have worked for this. I have not reviewed the product description again to make sure, but I thought it said it was for lectures, so this was not correct. I tried getting help from the software company, but they never clearly gave instructions or help in solving this issue. So I have returned the product, hoping for a full refund. Bummed to say the least.

Im Aiden and Im not a native English speaker. Just bought a copy of DNS Premium 11 few weeks ago. DNS was able to listen to what I have to say, after some initial training. I would say the time youre going to put into the initial training is very important. Ive registered myself at Nuance website, and their staff was replying to my questions, feedbacks in a very fast and good manner! So all in all, I got the value out of what Ive been paying for. I love DNS 11 so much, it ease out my pain on wrist and arm. Im not used to it yet, so whenever I want to try to correct something or talk to DNS about a command, it doesnt understand it. But overall, this is a very good software to be used. If youre a native English speaker, and you speak good English, and you have a lot of things to be typed out, then you would really want to grab a copy of DNS. Aiden Chong

I bought the Dragon NaturallySpeaking software about a month ago. I was very hesitant because I was concerned about the accuracy but I needed something because I have severe arthritis. But to my surprise it was amazing right out of the box. It only took a few minutes to set up and verify that I was a student. I have used this for writing several technical papers and it has done awesome picking up on chemical compound names and engineering terms. I have been very amazed with this product and I am using it to write this review and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Have a computer that was new 5 years ago. I loaded Dragon, provided documents, did training and worked through the tutorial. The first document I tired to create was a test document. It hung up so I closed Dragon and opened it again -- I started creating a document again and got a BLUE SCREEN. The recommendation from Microsoft was that I remove the software. So I did. But I am not that disappointed - though I am out my experimental investment. Dragon was so slow in recording that I could say a complete paragraph before it could finish the first sentence. I cant write that way -- as a fiction writer I need to be fluid and I can wait for the computer to catch up with me. The advertisement said Dragon would be 3 times faster - that would be very true if you cannot type. I was hoping for a different mechanism for typing -- I am on the computer all day at work. This was not the answer for me. I also purchased a better headset -- it did not function at all with Dragon.

I have started using this product in the last half-hour and Im already using it to write the review. This software has quickly started recognizing my dictation. Activation was real simple provided you had a student e-mail account ending with a .edu. In my experience, it took me less than 5 min. to jump through the activation hoops. Others may have experienced problems because they did not have a EDU e-mail account. To my mind, this is a basic requirement that should be met. If someone does not have an EDU account it is very difficult to believe that he is a student. Student software then becomes a joke. The premium version of this software has been well reviewed by others on this site. I therefore do not have much to add to the review. Im enjoying using the software and I will report any problems if I should encounter any.

The product arrived quickly and in very good packaging. Dragon loaded quickly. This version works much better/fewer errors in voice recognition than older versions. Id recommend buying.

I bought the student version of Drangon Naturally Speaking for my grandson who lives with me. I called Nuance on Friday about getting the serial number and she said to follow the instructions on the product. I sent in the required information yesterday (9/11/10) and am still waiting for the serial number. I called them today and got no help. It seems like Im going to go through some of the hoops that another writer talked about. Why they have to make this such a big deal is beyond me.