Customer Reviews

Scansoft Dragon Naturally Speaking 7.0 Standard

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

 

 

When I bought this product a month ago, I was excited about the idea of sitting back and dictating my research essays. For the most part the software recognizes your voice pretty well and even though it does make mistakes, it gets better as you train it. Using it with your mouse and keyboard together works the best.

However, I would have to say from my experience and reading many reviews of this product is that its company Scansoft has terrible technical support. The software has many compatibility issues (eg. Visual Studio, etc to name one)where you get alot of pop up error messages. When you want to talk to someone about it or at least send an e-mail to Scansoft, they want you to pay a hefty fee of $9.95 for each e-mail question or $19.95 for phone support. It seems this company wants to sell you a product but give you no guidance as to any of its quirks. This is almost criminal in my mind.
Because of this, I recommend that people stay away from this company until they realize that charging someone for their product's shortcomings is not RIGHT! I also learned that a voice version of this technology comes with Office Xp and tried it out and works well with a half-decent microphone I have. So, what I am saying is that I would not buy this product due to the fact that if something goes wrong, they do not care! Poor business ethics!

Version 7.0 preferred has excellent voice-recognition. However there are some glaring incompatibilities that make the product almost unusable. For example; I have XP Pro service pack two and the latest upgrades to Internet Explorer 6.0. With NaturallySpeaking running, whether I use voice or mouse to click on favorites and select a link, IE completely locks up. Therefore I have to shut down NaturallySpeaking before I can use Internet Explorer, and then restart it when I'm finished browsing. As mentioned by other reviewers ScanSoft charges USD19.95 for each support call after the first -- even to report a glaring bug such as the one mentioned above. This is unconscionable. Based on their support policies alone I would have to say stay away from their products.

Naturally Speaking Standard 7 is the best voice recognition software I have used since I first began using voice software in 1998. I have had other software programs, but I have found Dragon to be the best. I have versions 5, 6 and now 7. I find version 7 sophisticated and accurate. In using the software, I experienced no problems with getting it to adjust to my voice patterns. I estimate a 96.5 to 97.5 percent accuracy on the very first run when dictating at an average speed. The clearer I speak, the more the accuracy improved. I use the headphones/microphone that comes with it. I have found that the best way to use this software is to speak as if I were a newscaster - no slang, minimal accent of slurring of words, and simple emphasis on key words. I use this software for graduate level research writing. It requires some training, but this software is a lifesaver (ie huge time saver). If you have been told like me, "If only you could write as well as you speak", then buy Dragon Naturally Speaking 7, you will be amazed how easy it is to use. Caution though, your computer must have the minimum recommended capabilities, or you will get disappointing results. Enjoy!

I'm a direct response copywriter, which means that I often have to key in great quantities of text. Unfortunately, I am also a sufferer of carpal tunnel syndrome.

Although I've only had this program for a few days, I find it has taken a lot of the stress out of inputting copy.

As another user suggested, it seems best to dictate the words, and use your mouse or keyboard for formatting.

The program works very well with e-mail and word processing. But as an added bonus, it seems to give you control over most functions of any Windows program!

For example, when your desktop is on the screen, you say "open Microsoft Word," and the program opens. Whoah, beam me up, Scotty! I would imagine that this program could be very useful to people with injuries or disabilities, not to mention "lending a hand" when your hands are full.

The program does make some recognition errors, but then I do suffer a bit from marble-mouth myself. Fortunately, it's easy to correct mistakes by selecting the words in error, and then saying the correct word or selecting one of the choices the program presents you.

Surprisingly, the program invites you to speak at your normal speed. Not to slow down as some earlier dictation programs forced you to do. There are also some passages they give you to read into the supplied headset microphone to improve the accuracy of the recognition.

They say it takes about two weeks to optimize the program for your speaking pattern. I find the other challenge is simply getting used to dictation; as a touch typist and self-employed individual, I'm not accustomed to dictating documents to a secretary!

The only reason I'm not giving this program five stars is because of the developer's stingy user support, as reported by other users here. When are manufacturers going to learn that it is imperative to provide a toll-free number for customers to call with product problems, and that customers should NOT be charged for the privilege either?

Still, until another developer creates a product as good as this, NaturallySpeaking is probably the only game in town.

Okay, how did you people get this thing to be in the least bit accurate? I am now typing this review in dragon pad to see how it fares. I just finished transcribing to interviews, and got the most ridiculous results. Oddly enough, this is coming-out far more accurate, then, the interviews granted it is making grammar mistakes. But that's to be expected. It seemed that he can't keep up with me when I talked very fast see, like that. I speak very clearly and actually have been a public speaker. So I know that it's not that I mumble, or I'm not articulating enough. I think that if all one wanted to do with this was to tie thousand e-mails and perhaps right out letters were speech is that might be fine. But using it to transcribe quickly has been a nightmare. I and purposely not going back and correcting any of this. So you can see what it really looks like tie thousand should have been typed in some. Type in some. Off yes, if I speak like a robot sometimes it works, but not always. Off yes, should have been to ah I give up. See what I mean?

Let us try some nursery rhymes, Thomas Moffett sat on her topic heating or credited way. Oh, God, that was perfect. The tell Mace Moffett sat on her toughest eating her currents and way. One more try late told Mace Moffett sat on her tough it eating her curtains and way.

(If you couldn't tell, that was Dragon's version of Little Miss Muffett. Just stepping in here to type, because I can't get it to even come vaguely close.)

But in case you think that's not fair, let's try the back of my Sausalito cookies bad: topical key in the microwave for 10 to 15 seconds for a fresh from the oven taste. Cannot purchase of baggies opener toward. Try again. Cannot purchase of baggies opener toward. Not even close. Do not purchase if bag is open or toward. Torn to. Torn! Yes, that's it.

This is the first program of it's kind that I've tried so I can't recommend anything better at this point. But I am very frustrated, and serious -- -- no, I said to your yes... No, I said, furious -- -- that I can't even get any technical support without paying for it, even when it deals with glitch is. They have found and documented such as the conflict with Visual Studio. It is an embarrassment that this company has such a little respect for its customers.

It often writes absolute nonsense -- a decent grammar check of the kind that Microsoft Word has had for years would eliminate about half of that, and it pathetic that Dragon has not included this already. (Example: with a grammar check, it would have detected that "it pathetic" is not something I likely to say, and would have tried a different option like "it's". See? there it is again, "I likely".)

And if I say "select that" to bring up the correction menu (which often doesn't work, but anyway...) and wanted to choose item number four, I say "choose four"... but instead of putting in the fourth option, it types "choose for" or "choose four" or "shoes for".

These are minor example. Examples. Often the mistakes a much more dramatic. Are much more dramatic.

Love got a lot of effort... try again: although I go to a lot of effort to try and train the program, the accuracy is still very disappointed. (Disappointing!) It's generally much slower than typing because I spent so much time going back to correct mistakes.

And the Dragon Pad editor is not very good - can't do multiple undos (ie go back before the last edit).

Conclusion: Not good enough! Get it together, Dragon!

I'll give it two stars though because it believed it has ["at least it has"...i gave up and typed this] a module for non-US accent. Accent. Accent. Accent. Accent. Accent. Then. Damn. Accents.

I still use the program about half the time that I work catered computer... workout for...workout for... work at the computer, because it does relieve the strain on my hands and wrists. But not all the time because data does give me voice strain. I'm sure the voice strain would be much less if I could just dictate without constantly having to go back and give edit commands (or give the same command 6 times before giving up).

By the way some tips to prevent voice strain are found at: (...)

I have been using this software about a month. The improvement in accuracy has been nothing short of amazing. Yes, like other reviewers who have had good results, I spent the time and patience it took to train the system. I'm just a little annoyed that ScanSoft has recently dropped the price of its Preferred version, and not offered those of use with the Standard version an opportunity to upgrade at a reasonable price. But, as I build the recognition vocabulary, and since I don't work with Microsoft Office apps (I use Text Pad to review the spelling and spacing of the dictated materials), I'm not sure that the higher-priced version would have been that much more useful, given my work habits.

I've already reviewed this product, about a month ago, but since then the accuracy has improved dramatically, as it has learnt to recognise my speech. I often speak sentence after sentence with hardly a correction. Most of my gripes still apply though. And it seems to have good and bad days -- probably affected by microphone position among other things.

I use it less select half the time, to avoid voice strain. But when I have a lot of typing to do it's a great relief for my hands, and quite good speed.

One annoying thing, which I didn't mention before, is when it repeatedly makes the same mistake when trying to correct a word. For example I said " hi Sandra" which it rendered as "bystander". When I selected this it did not offer the correct option so I spoke again and this time got "high Sandro". I selected Sandro, and said Sandra (as Sandra was not on the list of options), and the program typed Sandro, or centre, again and again until I used the spelling tool. "Hi" also took a few attempts. My point is 1: the list of options often neglects obvious ones, and 2: if I've already rejected Sandro and centre for this occurrence of this word, the program should be able to remember that and not just repeat those mistakes.

(for reference, I'm using the Australian module.)

This is the first speech recognition software I've ever bought or used and if this is the best out there, well, the industry has a LONG way to go.
The program has a function to teach it when it makes mistakes and to tell it what you are actually trying to say. Sounds like a good idea, except that it doesn't learn and just keeps on making the same mistakes again. Very frustrating. I've gone so far to actually delete words from its own database just so it won't pick that same word again and again and again when it's not the word I want it to pick (after teaching it 20 times, of course).
Customer service? ha! There is no online support and there is no toll free number. That's right, apparently they want you to PAY to call them! What nerve.
If anyone wants a free copy of this software and hardware you can come by my place and pick it out of my garbage on Tuesday morning.

I bought this version before I bought a Sony digital voice recorder and later learned you need at least version 8 (Standard) to use it in combination with a digital voice recorder. I was able to buy Version 8 very inexpensively here as well.