Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium 12, English (Old Version)

Ive been using Dragon NaturallySpeaking since version 3. Many people try this program and almost immediately stop using it. when I first began using it years ago I did the same thing. I would put it on my computer system, go through a lengthy training process to teach it how I speak. The training process teaches it how you pronounce different words and it used to take about an hour. While there is still a training period it now takes roughly 5 min. in the past even after training the program to recognize your voice through that hour-long process it would still make many mistakes. And like most people I just got frustrated and uninstalled it. If I gave this five stars you know there has to be a bright side coming. :-) One day, back in version 3, I decided I was going to use it no matter what. And Im glad I did. What frustrates people the most about using voice dictation software is that its not 100% correct all the time. Now a big however. However, when the program makes a mistake (and it holds true right up to the newest version) instead of getting frustrated all you have to do is correct the mistake. Teach the program what you wanted it to type as opposed to what it did. Once you do that it usually doesnt make the same mistake again. As an example, I have a medical condition called Ménières disease. I guarantee you the word Ménières is not in any standard dictionary that computer uses. So the very first time I was dictating a letter and said the word Ménières the computer typed the words many ears. Coincidently, Ménières disease does happen to be a problem with the inner ear but the term many ears isnt certainly what I was looking for. To correct the error went like this: say to the computer select many ears, then say spell that and a dialog box pops up and all you do is speak into the microphone and spell the word correctly. In my case it was to say cap m e n i e r e s, say the words click train and the computer automatically clicks a button labeled train and then you speak the word that you just spelled and it enters it into its dictionary. And it will then replace the incorrect spelling with the correct one automatically and you can continue dictating. When people read this in the manual that is usually what deters them from using the program. I like everyone else thought I was going to be spending all my time saying that entire paragraph to correct a word. Also like everyone else I thought I didnt have the time. The thing is, to actually perform the actions that I described in the previous paragraph actually takes less than 15 seconds and once you do but you dont have to do it ever again. I have created a website dedicated to information on Ménières disease so the term Ménières came up constantly. After the first time it made the mistake of spelling Ménières as many ears it never made the mistake again. Being a website dedicated to a rare medical condition I used the term Ménières probably 100 to 120 times. Like I said, after correcting it the first time it never made the mistake of misspelling Ménières again. In this review alone Ive used the word Ménières at least 6 to 8 times. This review is being dictated through Dragon NaturallySpeaking. If you do see a mistake in any of the words in this review its due to my laziness, not the program. I say that because besides just speaking into a microphone and watching the words appear on screen you can even use the program in another way to check what youve written (or what its written). Both the premium and the home versions of this program have the ability to read what has been typed out loud. The only reason Im not doing it is because Im starting to run late for an appointment and lost track of time. So there isnt time to have it read the entire review back to me and listen for errors. But once more, if you read this back to me and there was an error all he would have to do is go back and correct it and it wouldnt happen again. When I started using this program it was for work purposes but I didnt think much of it when I stopped using it because I typed 111 words per minute accurately. What can I say, I did a lot of typing so my speed just naturally built up. Another however coming. However, now I have osteoarthritis and not only do I type very slowly but its very painful. Using NaturallySpeaking once I start the program I dont have to touch the keyboard. It even has an entire set of commands for several of the most common web browsers so you can use it to surf the Internet as well. And that is also in either the Home or Premium versions of this program. As of today (April 9, 2014) Amazon is selling the previous version (11) for an extremely reduced price. While I purchased the Premium 12 version for a few extra features I found I really dont use them so I went back and purchased two copies of version 11 (I have multiple computers). As THE final note, which ever version of the program you by, it also comes with a plug-in headset. I didnt feel like sitting a few feet from my computer – which is the length of the cable to the headset – so I simply purchased a wireless one for $20. But you do have everything you need to get started right out of the box. Would I recommend it? I own four copies… you guess…

You have to train the software to your voice and speech patterns. And, the software also trains you to say; period, paragraph, comma, numeral one, hyphen, etc. It was really a bit too much for me to use for anything other than somewhat short and quick notes. This isnt a learn it in a week type program. Its gonna be continuing education. It cant read your mind. If you are a writer, or doctor, this would be very worthwhile. The random and varied items that i have to type every day is just too broad of spectrum to be able to make good use of the this software. Also, any noise in the background can become an obstacle to its deciphering your speech properly. I am seldom in an environment where noise will not be an issue. I did get a voice recorder that does work well in transcribing my notes, but again, background noise obliterated many of my notes..

All the advertising and videos in this made it seem like this was a easy to use, user-friendly product. Its not overly technical, but its not as easy as they make it seem. Also, so far it has been terribly inefficient and inaccurate. I bought this product with the hope of improving my efficiency. However it seems a lot of work is needed upfront to get this working, and at the moment its time I dont have. So it is currently sitting in the box. Waste of money.

The program is as expected, but Nuance needs help. I had difficulty with getting it downloaded and their support was of no help - over 5 phone calls and about 3 hours. I got people in India a couple times and they had no clue about their product or how to speak intelligible English. They also refused to connect me to some in the U.S. Unfortunately, on the calls I reached someone in this country, they were of no help either and one of them wanted me to upgrade to version 13 - when she couldnt even help me with 12! The website lost my password twice - one of which was sent to me by them. The site also once could not recognize my E-mail address. I finally figured out how to get it downloaded with the help of Google.

I received this as a Christmas gift and installed it the next day. I was not able to get the mike and headset to work and kept receiving error messages of incompatability with my computer. I have Windows 7 and have had no other compatability issues with other software. After multiple calls to Tech Support, they were never able to resove this. I was told they were aware of incompatability issues with some sound cards. Over all,I spent about 6 hours on the phone with them. Although I was told a supervisor would review all my calls to make appropriate recomendations to resolve this, it was never done. I was told I would receive a new headphone/mike set in 3 to 4 days but that never happend. As a result I returnd this product. FYI, as a further insult, althougth they have a toll free number for Customer Support, the Tech Support line is not toll free. Also, Tech Support is only free for 90 days. If you call the Customer Support line and ask to be connected to Tech Support , some of the time they will, but at others they will tell you they do not have the ability to do so. Very poor cumstomer relations. I would never recomend this product or company.

Why oh why do you have to buy headphones with this software? They didnt work well (at all) and the $40 set from Best Buy (which I had to get to use the software at all) worked fine. Drop the headphones and sell the software as a digital download. Good software, dumb packaging. That is why I removed 2 stars - very annoying user experience due to somebody being convinced that their users would be too dumb to get a decent set of headphones - solved by them getting bad headphones for everyone... opportunity knocks. :- )

I had several issues with this product, When I finally got it to install it wont open on my laptop. I get an error that I dont have enough memory to operate it and I have over 50% of memory available. So I can tell you how well it works just that it wont. Not happy that it gives specs that it will work on my machine and now that I have it I cant use it...

Ive been using Dragon naturally speaking Premium 12 on my Windows 7 laptop for about two weeks. I am quite impressed with the voice recognition after a relatively short period of training. There is some learning curve that requires tutorials and study of the help information, but the effort is worth it. One thing I noticed is that it takes a long time for Dragon Dictation to load and also a long time for it to shut down and it seems that I experience more crashes when I am running Dragon Dictation premium 12. I also use the Dragon dictation apps for iPod and iPad and find them quite useful with the limitation that a Internet connection is required. When away from internet and have something I wish to dictate I just use the Voice Memo App on my iPod. Then I sync using iTunes and can easily convert to MP3 format which I can transcribe using the desktop app.

I have used Dragon Naturally Speaking for years, starting with version 6, and, while the early versions left something to be desired, they worked pretty well. I bought Dragon Version 10 and used it for a couple of years and was very happy with it. When I got a new computer running Windows 7 my Dragon 10 would not run so I upgraded to 12. What a mistake! While it does translate speech into text it is so irritating to use that I have gone back to my old computer and version 10. Since many words sound alike (isle/aisle, to/two/too, etc.) the program will sometimes make a mistake. With my old version I could select the word and say spell that and the program would let me make a correction, either by choosing the right word from a list or actually spelling the word on the keyboard and training the program to understand it. With this one about 90% of the time it refuses to work. If I say spell that the program comes back with spell letter S, deletes the word and inserts an S. Other times it will say spell bracket and insert a bracket. Many times it refuses to do anything and just sits with the cursor blinking. I am using the same microphone I used before and have even tried a wireless USB mic with the same result. If you go to the Nuance website there are a bunch of FAQs, but no easy way to talk to customer support. Maybe version 13 is better but i am not about to plunk down another $100 to find out. I wish I could recommend it but I cant.

Read reviews regarding instability with Windows 7 - I am seeing that some. Seems to freeze more inside Firefox. Headset a decent quality. The software took me about an hour to load including the latest update...that was a little concerning, but it did run perfectly. Took about 30 minutes to train and Im off to the races. I think control boxes and drop-downs are a little kludgy to navigate and I have a lot of those in our software at work.....but for just every day talking and typing - hands down better than ending up the day with sore, arthritic fingers and hands - give it a try - its certainly cheap enough! (and if you dont like it, send it to me!)