Customer Reviews

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Preferred Wireless [Old Version]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I have just upgraded from Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 to 10. I am happy to report that so far, after a couple of days trial, this upgrade seems to have been well worth it in terms of increased accuracy. (BUT SEE LATER!) At the same time I was tempted into purchasing the alleged integrated Calisto Bluetooth microphone, attracted by the special price, the convenience of a wireless headset, and the promise of increased accuracy.

However, I have run into two problems, either of which makes the Calisto currently useless. In the first place, the Bluetooth insert device for the USB port cuts out after an hour or two of usage. Its function is only restored after completely rebooting the computer.

The second problem is far more serious. Once the Plantronics Calisto is activated, Dragon Naturally Speaking demands that you " prepare this user for dictation". You would probably be encouraged to note that the accuracy level of the new Calisto is rated very high. You are then required to read a passage from a selected text. When Dragon is satisfied with your reading, it will present you with a dialogue box telling you to wait while your user files are being adjusted for your reading. In my case my computer then simply hung up, and could not be started up again without a complete reboot. Two different Dragon phone techs attempted to solve the problem unavailingly, the second one promising I would get a call back from a top expert capable of solving the problem. No reply over the last two days, and similarly no reply yet to an email I sent them yesterday informing them of the Bluetooth insert failure.

I started dictating this review with DNS 10, but, sadly it first began reverting to a habit Id seen before with DNS 9, that is, starting up a new sentence or phase one letter too early. Finally, it gave up altogether and refused to accept any dictation from my old and otherwise commendable Plantronic DSP 400 mic.

So I can hardly recommend purchase of any of this Nuance equipment right now unless you're willing to pay good money for what amounts to a rather unpromising Beta version. But if they had waited to get the bugs out first, they might well have something really to get excited about. Maybe wait six months, a year?

Lesson: I should have paid attention to earlier negative Amazon reviews. (I trusted Nuance on the basis of good experience with earlier versions.)

I finally received by new Dragon 10 and the Bluetooth bundled ear piece. It took a long time as nuance did not send me any kind of tracking number so I missed the shipment. However, it was well worth the wait. I have to admit I've only had this for a few days so I have not experienced the failure of the USB inset the previous viewer has, perhaps I will over time. However, I was thrilled to see how well Bluetooth worked since I was never able to get it to work very well with version 9. Even more impressive, instead of running this on a quad core processor like I did on version 9 I am running this on an Acer netbook with the Atom processor and it works flawlessly, I am very satisfied so far. I wish that I could buy plantronics Bluetooth earpiece separately so that I would have a spare, I never thought Bluetooth would work so well after all the problems I had with various Bluetooth devices in version 9.

I am using Dragon NaturallySpeaking to type this review. I am a quadriplegic and have relied on Dragon since version 2. I have been fairly pleased with version 6 for the last seven years and was hesitant to spend the money to upgrade. I am so glad I did. I used to have to dictate a sentence, pause, check for inaccuracies, then continue with the next sentence. Now, when I do my homework, I am able to dictate an entire paragraph from what I am reading before having to take a minute and correct the one or two errors. Its speed and accuracy is an absolute significant improvement.
A couple interesting observations:
I am running Dragon 10 on two computers: one at home with Vista (Quad Core with six gig of RAM), and my work computer with XP Pro (dual core, 1G ram). It seems I have more functionability with Vista, which is ironic. For example, in Vista I can shut down the computer by voice, where with XP it goes through the motions but does not actually shut down. I am having to learn in both operating systems which commands are available in which windows, and which are not (for example, I can say "click Office Button" when I'm in Word, but then cannot click any menu items that come up--unless I say "down 2, right 1, press enter." Also, Dragon works well in Vista's PowerPoint 2007, but not XP with 2007. It's a little inconvenient learning which commands I can use at home and which ones I can use at work, but it is tolerable.
Second: At first I could not get the Plantronics wireless headset to work. I was just about ready to send it all back out of frustration. My difficulties came for two reasons. (A) the Amazon vendor through whom I purchased the "Wireless" package from actually sent the regular Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred package, and then included the Callisto USB wireless headset on the side. Therefore, it had no manuals, no instructions, no help. It took some surfing on the Internet to figure out how to turn the earpiece on, with its varied beeping tones, and to get it to sync with the USB receiver. (B) Once I figured out how to recognize when the wireless headset was active with Dragon, it has worked very well. So, although the vendor saved me some money, it was quite a hassle.
Third: Having more global commands from the desktop and from Internet explorer are very nice. I still have to learn when I can navigate by voice and when I just must use my trackball, but there is far more capability now which saves my paralyzed arm strength.
For any new user of Dragon, it does take time to learn the commands, but with patience it is a very effective tool. For anyone like me who absolutely must have a voice activated program, it was well worth the money to increase my efficiency and reduce my wife's irritation at me screaming "Scratch That!" every minute.
I would absolutely purchase this product again.

This software is amazing. I am dictating this review using this software. I have been using personal computers well over 20 years, and I am amazed. I was interested in their software because I had a stroke about a year ago and I lost dexterity in my right hand. That made typing a real chore and I thought this software would help. Wow, does it ever help. I read the reviews and saw that many people said it works better than they expected. That is certainly true for me. I selected the package that includes the Bluetooth microphone. I love it. I will caution you that the Bluetooth mic can be complex to get working. I had some trouble with that and had to go into control panel and play with the sound settings to get the microphone working and get sufficient audio level. But it was well worth the effort. I love being able to walk around the room while I am talking. You can get a cuppa coffee, or look out the window while you are working. The software also works fine with my wired USB headset and even the headset that plugs into my sound card.

The software worked almost flawlessly 10 minutes out of the box. I dictated four paragraphs on my first try, and the software only failed to recognize one word. That was the word 'library'. I think that might be because I suffer from a mild case of Georgia mush mouth, which is caused by eating too much possum. (to all my friends in Georgia, I'm just kidding). I selected the general dialect during set up, and it seems to work fine in spite of my slightly Southern accent. The software works fine in note pad, and I use it for MySpace instant message writing too. I haven't done any training yet or added any custom commands, and there are a lot of commands that I haven't learned yet, but it really is speaking naturally. In most regards the commands are indeed intuitive, and what comes naturally to mind works most of the time. There is a feature for automatic punctuation that works quite well. In automatic mode, it actually punctuates better than some of my friends.( smile).

In short, I heartily recommend this software. It is especially useful to someone who dislikes typing or has a disability like mine.

This is the wireless version, and a microphone pickup seems to be about as good as the more cumbersome hard wired unit the computer techie gave to me at the office. I thought that one was pretty good, but this Bluetooth version is much tighter since you don't have to deal with the wire.

But for Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10, while I can say that it's better than the version 9 product, especially for the correction features, but he ended the day I find myself wanting to strangle the thing. I'm dictating this review using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10, just to give you an idea of what the unedited speech comes out like.

in the first paragraph the work which Dragon picked up as "tighter" should have been "nicer." In the second

The part of the sentence that says "but he ended should have read "but by the end of" the day.and as you noticed, there's a few typographical errors in this "nonstandard" window ID Katie. (Now I have to say that "ID Katie should have read "I am dictating into.")

Having said that, I will say that if you are careful about making your corrections and follow the recommended procedure rather than simply following the urge to retype things yourself, this version seems to do a very good job of recognizing the changes. Sometimes. Other times, the system for some reason just does not seem to want to recognize common phrases that sound somewhat similar.

For the extra money I would choose the wireless version over the wired version for one big reason. Not only is the headset more comfortable to wear because you're not tied by a wire to the computer, I find that even where the headset given to me by the techie at the office, when I moved it tends to pull on the wire, which tends to move the speaker and headphone around, and therefore the sound that the system is picking up is never quite the same.

I find it if I turn my head far to the left to look at pieces of paper on my desk instead of the computer screen, the change in the placement of the microphone although not large, it is nevertheless significant enough to result in very large changes in how well the system picks up what I'm saying.

But the Bluetooth system does not seem to suffer from that problem since for the most part the fifth of the over the ear microphone and earpiece keeps it from moving well I turn my head to look at other things and continue dictating.

If you've read this review always do this point that I think you can recognize where the system has made some perhaps silly mistakes, at least enough to decide whether this will work for you or not. In my opinion, I'm happy with it, and since my typing is slow and my mind thinks little better when I'm speaking, I like it.

Amazingly, the voice recognition works quite well. It read all my Outlook emails and from this knows how I speak / write.

Unfortunately, what doesn't work is
1) The hardware: wireless headset only worked one time, after working with tech support for 15 minutes. Immediately stopped working after next reboot.
2) The software: unreliable, crashes other programs.
3) Navigation: I never got the hang of moving around and between programs without the keyboard

I'm very impressed Nuance solved the very difficult problem of speaker-independent voice recognition. I'm very disappointed they couldn't solve the basic issues of hardware and software.

In the end, I'm not using the software.

It seems to work pretty good with my Skype microphone, but
I can't get the wireless headphones to work. They may be broken
so I am going to buy another set and them my review could be better.
Rex Bell

VERY frustrating -- VERY sporadic functionality. Only once succeeded, despite multiple attempts at slavishly following installation instruction, at getting either sound or microphone function.

It is not easy to find information of this problem. Don't know whether the problem is the 64-bit, the Vista, or the Windows 7. Whichever, the installation was NOT easy, the performance has been nil.

I do NOT recommend this setup with any of the above, unless and until MS or Nuance issue fixes.

This product is not 99% accurate... no way and not even close. I am not impressed with it for the most part. The promise is BIG and it would be great if it did work 99% of the time.

I am going to try it with the wired mic to see if this makes a difference. I am happy that is works with a unique program... but only for text entry as no commands are recongized in it.

Could be more intuitive overall.

This product is for some and not others I guess.

This softwear learned my speech pattern right away and has been flawless for a year now. Try it you''ll like it.