Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 11 Student Edition [Old Version]

Great gift for my dad who was been looking for a better way to write letters (he cant type very well). Thank you for such a great product!

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 lost the use of my right arm/hand half way thru a collage semester. I purchased DNS to dictate and control my computer so that I would not have to drop my courses and continue school. Activating the Academic version is quick and easy with a valid approved institution e-mail address. The software is a bit taxing on computer resources. I recommend installing on a new Windows 7 PC with 4 gig or Ram to benefit from all the features. Although, It preforms well on one of my XP computers with only 1.5 gig of RAM. DNS adapts quickly to your voice and constantly learns to improve accuracy, the hardest part is learning how to talk what you want to type.

still using it

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.

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!

It doesnt understand me when I talk, and the company keeps calling me and asking me to upgrade. Bummer.

I have owned Dragon NaturallySpeaking since version 3, and have always appreciated the excellent improvements. My experience with Version 11 is that it is a significant downgrade from the quality I have been used to. The software crashes frequently and I have to exit and reload to continue. Ive tried reinstalling, but that does not help. In addition, simple things are quite annoying like if I place my cursor at the beginning of a sentence, it does not capitalize automatically. It also does not add spaces automatically. Dragon NaturallySpeaking never used to do this with the previous Version 9 and 10 that Ive owned. On the more positive side, the accuracy is excellent, and Ive experienced that with previous versions. In my view, definitely not worth upgrading unless theres other applications or improvements that suit ones needs, of which Im unaware.

This software has saved my life!!! I love it...I am a fulltime student and I work partime. And I have to write papers all the time but I dont type. So it took me extra long..this program helps with that trmendously. Now all I do is write it out then speak it .....what took me hours takes me less than one hour..... Some things to consider, the headset that comes with it SUCKS your accuracy will be way off if you stick with it. I had to buy another one of better quality-- I now get 99% accuracy I had no problem getting my log in since I bought the student version and when i had a problem customer service@ Dragon was helpfull and walked me through the set up process without a hassle. Overall the program is great!!!! saves you alot of time.

Good program