Customer Reviews

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 6 Standard [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you are planning on buying any of ScanSoft's Dragon NaturallySpeaking software, I would urge you to first visit their website...to read up on their pricing scheme for tech support.

I quote, "You may contact ScanSoft Technical Support by email through the support section of this web site. Fill out a Problem Report Form and a response will be sent in a timely manner upon receipt. Each incident entered from the Problem Report Form with be charged $9.95. Email is a lower cost option to telephone support."

Nine dollars and ninety-five cents to get them to answer your tech support questions on their products?!?

But that's not the worst of it. Notice the last sentence of that quote. "Email is a lower cost option to telephone support."

Is it ever.

I quote further, "One free technical incident" support call per customer is allowed, each "Additional incidents $[money] each"; that's [money]cents for each additional call!

Consider yourself lucky, version 5 users don't even get the first free call.

So what does this mean? It means that if you don't get all of your problems solved in one phone call, or, heaven forbid, you have a problem somewhere down the line, you get the privilege of paying ScanSoft ...for any tech support you might need getting their product to run (and that's per call).

I wish you luck if you go ahead and buy this product; but please, don't just take my word for what I'm writing...do yourself a favor and check out their website for yourself first.

I have the original DragonNaturally Speaking. Although it worked fairly well, I found I spent as much time and effort -through keyboard and mouse correction - as I would in typing text. Version 6 is easier to use, makes fewer errors, and requires less correction. As a wannabe novelist, I find any voice recognition program inhibits creativity, especially when there are others within hearing range. As a person with a disability, I find DNS-v6 very helpful in letter and e-mail writing. Version 6 definitely requires less keyboard and mouse correction, although that is still a concern. I like the correction boxes which present corrections in bold print. This definitely reduces correction time.

I am running both German and English versions 4.0 and thought upgrading to 6.0 with Windows XP would be a good idea. Forget it! The program froze! I uninstalled and then reinstalled. Now, it would't accept the product key printed on the box. There is no support. I send the product back, losing [the cost of] S&H.
If you buy, you are in for a rough ride!

I bought version 6 rather than 7 from the comments of Amazon customers.

In years' past,I was a rapid 10 finger typist. But a year ago,I sustained a spinal cord injury causing numbness to my fingers.

With this software, I can type with an accuracy approaching what I could do when healthy. What I find remarkable is that, being Canadian, I tend to talk fast and slur a bit. Still, I find I can consistently achieve close to 90% accuracy.

One warning: this software needs a reasonably up to date computer. Those who comment negatively I suspect maybe installed their software on antiquated hardware.

If you have a good computer you should be able to install and up and running within half hour.

A tip: I got my software cheap on EBay- $50 cdn=$35 US. Again, get version 6 not 7.