Customer Reviews

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Preferred - Medium Box

5 star:		(62)
4 star:		(55)
3 star:		(29)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(75)

 

 

The only reason I'm reviewing this upgraded version of Dragon is because of all the negative reviews I have read. To be perfectly honest, I was hesitant to install the software because of all the problems I was reading about in the past 10 days. I received the Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 CD almost a week ago and have not installed it for fear I would mess up my computer, LOL. Finally, after reading all the negative comments and doing a lot of research on installing the program, I crossed my fingers and took the chance.

I can say in all honesty that it installed without a hitch. I receive no error messages, no constant reboot requests, no lost user files, nothing. Everything went smoothly. I have been using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 preferred for the past two years and decided to upgrade because of the faster recognition and updated features. After inserting the Dragon 10 CD in the drive, the software loaded and proceeded to install. It recognized that I had a previous version installed and asked if I wanted to keep my user files for the new version. I clicked yes and the software did the rest.

I am using the program to dictate this review right now. It is very fast and accurate as you can tell. The words appear on the page much faster than version 9. When they say it's 20% faster, I think that is accurate. I am also noticing many less errors in recognizing my words. I'm not sure if that's because of my extensive user file or simply because the software is better.

If you are on the fence about purchasing the software, you can wait for an updated version or do what I did and upgrade now. I'm glad I did even though there were so many discouraging reviews on Amazon and other websites. My experience was trouble-free and I hope yours will be also if you purchase and eventually install the software.

I am writing this review with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Preferred. I finally had to cut and paste "NaturallySpeaking 10 Preferred." because this program was performing so poorly. If ever this program was going to fail this is not a good time. LOL

This program is buggy and tech support is horrible. I have never been able to get results like the ones I see advertised on the Internet. If I could type and spell well I would leave this program alone. Unfortunately I have dyslexia and am a slow typist. Dragons speak definitely adds to my productivity significantly. If you are in a similar situation like myself, I would advise purchasing the preferred version over the standard version because this program can read back what you have typed in. I find this very helpful because often times my mind wants to read what I think should be on the page instead of what's actually been written. Dragon speak has a funny way of changing your words slightly so that your sentences don't make sense. I would advise future customers to consider an upgraded microphone, plenty of RAM, and a decent CPU. I know people have complained about loading this program but I had no trouble. I'm using windows XP.

Over the length of this review I probably touched my mouse or keyboard 10 to 20 times to correct minor errors with this program. this next sentence is an example of a common Dragon speak error."Fortunately I believe I only type I or two words." Correction Fortunately I believe I've only had to type one or two words.

I hope you found this review helpful

I have used Dragon NaturallySpeaking more than seven years, starting back with version 5. Each new version has been better, and version 9 was clearly a substantial improvement. It was fast, accurate, and reasonably stable. I use it every day for e-mail, notes, and letters.

When I saw the advertisement for version 10, I trusted the ad line that it was even faster and more accurate. Besides, shouldn't my new Dell desktop with dual core Pentium processors (running Windows XP) be able to handle version 10.

Wrong I was. After installing the software last week, I have experienced software lock-up every 15 or 20 minutes. Closing Dragon and restarting the software is not enough. I have to reboot my Dell to clear out memory in order to get another 15 or 20 minutes of reasonable function, until the software locks-up again.

In addition, I frequently experience long (up to 15 second) delays between pronunciation of a sentence and appearance of the words on the computer screen. I will confirm that word recognition accuracy is good, even better than Dragon version 9 (which wasn't bad).

My opinion: if you are running version 9, stay with it. Version 10 is unstable and interfaces poorly with other programs such as MS Word and MS Outlook. Version 10 still needs a lot of work before it is ready for prime time.

Update: As I said, I emailed customer service. I heard nothing so I checked the "support" site and looked at the action on my request. Here is what appeared:

New Email

*** Call Date: 8/15/2008 8:50:58 AM
Agent: LorenC Level: 3
Status: Closed


I called the 800 number, followed the several voice prompts to "customer service" and got the recording, "all of our agents are assisting other customers, your call will be answered in the order in which it was received." I waited 15 minutes and then called the listed headquarters number (not toll free) There I ran into more voice prompts at three levels and wound up with the same robot telling me again how everyone is busy.

I used to enjoy this program. Now I have such a bad taste for Nuance that I will go back to typing or to a quill pen and papyrus before I use anything from Nuance again.

Here's my original review:

I have a new HP laptop with plenty of memory and speed. It runs vista home premium. I tried to load DNS X and kept getting the message I needed to restart my computer in order to load the required runtime C++ I let it play that game with me about four times until I realized I was being played. I went to the Nuance technical support page and looked up the problem in the "knowledgebase." There it was - continually telling me to restart is apparently a common problem. There are detailed instructions on how to delete temp files and modify the registry to cure the problem. I did it all and still got the same message - "restart." So, it was time for an email to tech support to find out what I need to do. Well, the first thing I needed to do was pay Nuance 10 dollars to send the email.

I wrote to customer service instead and said I want my money back under the 30 day guarantee. It's a good program and I upgraded from version 7. But I absolutely refuse to pay anything to any company to be able to install the program I just bought from that company.

By the way - there is no way to download a trial to see if it will install before buying.

Dragon Naturallyspeaking Preferred 10 Us Retail Stores Only I have used Dragon Naturally Speaking software through the past three versions. When version 10 came out, I was optimistic that it would work with Vista, and it would be substantially improved over version 9. It has few improvements over the prior verson, and although it can be tweaked to work with Vista 32 bit, after fixes and getting third party drivers, it will not work with the 64 bit version of Vista, conveniently omitted by Nuance. Calls to technical support, through their annoying system (see prior review) finally elicits that they will try to get a verson that works by early 2009, and at a surcharge of $20-30.00 (one customer support operater advised that he was told to say the software is expected to ship around New year and the surcharge will be about $10.00, but he will nopt hold his breath either).

If you make the mistake of buying, and want to return the software, be warned that some venders (and Nuance) will make you pay return shipping and will take a full two months to return your money. I will be looking at different voice recognition software in future.

Very accurate. I was using version 9 preferred at work (for medical dictations), and I just got version 10 preferred and imported my user files from my previous version. I use PREFERRED instead of MEDICAL, for obvious reasons: $$$. The software engine is the same and the vocabulary is there for the most part... it just doesn't prioritize the medical words when you first start using the software. In my case, the software added a bunch of words from my documents, that it didn't know previously. It took me about one hour to train each word separetely, including expressions such as "BID", "qHS", etc. After doing this the accuracy improved significantly, as it now prioritizes the words that I trained.

It took some effort, especially in the beginning, to correct the mistakes so it could learn not only from my style, but also for it to learn to prioritize medical words. A tip: when you correct a word, especially if you spell the new word, TRAIN that word. When I do that it will not make the mistake again.

As they state, version 10 might not work with EMR... but I don't know. I use mostly Access to generate my notes, and sometimes Word, so I wouldn't know. I bet you can use the dragon note pad and then cut-paste into your EMR.

Again... it takes a little bit of effort in the beginning to have it work well in the medical field. I'd say in one or 2 weeks - assuming you correct the mistakes and train the words - it should be pretty close, if not just as good as the medical version. That's not to say it would completely replace the medical version, especially if you need features such as saving the audio along with the document for someone else to review the dictations.

Macros are possible with Preferred 10 and are a great feature!!! For example, you can create a voice command that will generate a big "canned" chunk of text, when you say only a couple of words. I precede all of them with the word "macro", in order to be easier for me to access them in my brain. For example... when I say "Macro Muffin", the program types "The patient was instructed and encouraged to control his caloric intake, monitor his blood sugar closely, exercise at least 3 times a week, increase fiber intake and avoid foods that are rich in fats and carbohydrates."

INSTALLATION: I tried installing it in my personal tablet PC... which I don't use very much for dictations, and I had the same "runtime C++" error that others mentioned. It might be because it runs Windows XP tablet edition and it has a Centrino 1GHz processor. At work I use a Pentium 4 with Xindows XP Professional, and 1GB of RAM and it installed very easily. I don't use the headset that came with the software, even though it's accepable. I got a Logitech USB desktop noise-cancelling microphone and it works great.

I hope this helps. I've been able to generate very complete notes with this software, and save a LOT of time.

I was excited at the chance to buy any dragon naturally speaking, and expected to buy version 9. when i went looking, i found new release version 10...read some reviews, compared versions, etc for several days before purchasing.

first, it took 8 days for it to arrive in the mail, too long. read the manual 1 day 1st before even trying to intall software - the book is very skimpy and doesnt address troubleshooting, but then it doesnt even have the company's website listed on/in it...that should have been a sign.
then ive been frustrated for 3 days trying to install this software. nuance help files, faq, and especially the index are absolutely horrible. and yes, they say they will charge you for any help, whether by phone or email, which is absolutely stupid after paying 190$ for the software in the first place.

1st problem was the C++ runtime/reboot error, where repeated rebooting doesnt fix the problem. the nuance knowledgebase had several possible fixes, including a zip download, none worked. i found a forum elsewhere that said to just go to C:/program files folder and look for the new dragon folder to delete it (bcs install was created and started, but not finished, so you wont lose anything anyway), and sure enough that solved the problem. rebooting and running dvd again then installed the c++ runtime that was needed.

2nd problem then was trying to install the dragon naturally speaking. it started installing, then some english cab file has an invalid digital signature, and instead of passing over it or using it anyway, it "rolled back" and wouldnt install any of the files. at least this error had a code "1330", which nuance knowledgebase had listed, and their solution 1 (of 3) worked, which is that you have to copy the entire dvd to your harddrive desktop, then run the install from the desktop instead.
3rd, then even while doing this, it wouldnt copy one of the .ini files, so i just was able to skip it.

finally the software installed. happy days, i thought.

i then tried to run it. a "serious error" occurs when trying to initialize and run. no code numbers, no other info, and no clue as to what a "serious error" means or what to do about it. ARRRGGHHH !
the stupid nuance index was clueless for a bit, but finally on the index word "initialization", i found the tech response. a cpu must be able to use SSE2.

never heard of it, but wikipedia helped. end result is that your cpu has to be built since 2006 to have sse2 capability. there is no way to add SSE2 instructions to any other types of cpu/chips. so, altho i have an 1.8 gh amd processor, which is what is stated in the minimum requirements, my processor was built in 2003 and thus is incapable of ever running this software.

++

so, if you have an older-than-2006 cpu, or also if you have such a new cpu that it runs 64-bit, DONT BUY THIS SOFTWARE, you'll never get to use it. this SSE2 requirement SHOULD HAVE been included in the CPU requirements both on amazon's site as well as on nuance's site so that you would check this stuff out before purchasing and returning software.

after finding this error, i did find another tech forum that addressed using dragon n s 10 and SSE2 requirement that is kept a big secret by nuance, and they suggested too, that nuance should either put it on their website, or on their box, or in their manual, or in their knowledgebase, or somewhere.

i agree, as i wasted 3 days of time over something that i knew about my computer, had it just been listed somewhere as a requirement.

but any company that charges for tech support for even the initial installing when you pay 200$ or more for the software, especially when they dont have a sufficient troubleshooting knowledgebase, is a company that i dont care to do business with. i am returning this product, and i better get my f*&(*&#$g refund from these screwy people.

This is one of those companies that treat you like a thief after you purchase their product. Installation is a nightmare -- solely to cut down on piracy -- and communication with this company is next to impossible. Responses are rude and a long time in coming -- and cost $15 each. A final point: don't even think about trying to install on a firewalled machine, since the program seeks frequent unfettered access to the internet so as to (again at cost to you for benefit to them) make sure you're not using the program you paid them for illegally. Appalling.

I purchased this as a physician to dictate directly into my office's EMR, but quickly discovered Nuance has disabled this feature with version 10. Version 9 Preferred would work in EMR's. Sure, they have a significantly more expensive "medical" version - in the $1400 range, but for essentially the same thing. The basic architecture for the program is identical, just an expanded medical database. Is that really worth another $1200? An online message board for my EMR is full of frustrated comments from other doctors who've been stung by this quirk from Nuance. Unfortunately for Nuance, they may have violated anti-trust laws by doing this. I agree with the above reviews as well, the installation process is severely flawed. Simply said, don't waste your time and money with version 10. I'm returning my purchase and going back to version 9.

I have never used speech recognition software before. Therefore, I was very excited to try Dragon Naturally Speaking 10, Preferred version. I pre-ordered ($99.95) it a week before release and when I tried to install it on my eMachines T3025 I received several error messages that failed to tell me why the software would not install. After considerable time on hold (long distance telephone calls) I was informed by a very polite and heavily accented "technician" that my processor did not possess the 2EE instructions required by the software. Not to be deterred, I purchased a new Dell desktop computer with a Core 2 Quad processor featuring the 2EE instructions and more. Today, when I attempted to install the software, the installation failed. The error message was that the software does not support 64 bit. Nuance's web pages offered no help that I could find. I dread the thought of additional long distance phone charges for being placed on extended hold; therefore, I'll post this on Amazon with a copy to Nuance. I have high hopes that someone more savvy than I can get me up and running. I'm waiting... :)