Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred 9 user reviews

Pros High level of accuracy with minimal training. Ability to train the progam to use abbreviations unique to your use.

Cons people who have tried previous version such as myself may be reluctant to try it again.

Summary Like the other reveiwer, I am a physician. I have given my transcriptionist two weeks notice that I no longer need her services. I have tried two previous versions of this software and this version appears light years ahead in terms of accuracy. It still isn't 100% accurate but it is definitely accurate enough to make it usable. So many software products are cool but don't save you money. This program does both. It is amazing how many drugs I pronounce that are spelled correctly the first time and this isn't even the medical version of the software which sells for a lot more. I certainly think most people who buy this new version will be pleased with it.

Pros very good recognition accuracy

Cons does not work with Outlook, requires powerful system

Summary I have been buying different versions of Dragon since it first came out. No more.

Beware. If you use Outlook, this version of Dragon is not compatible with it. You would think so if you read the marketing, unless you look very closely. Dragon crashes if you try to use it with Outlook.

It is compatible with other Microsoft applications. but not Outlook. Dragon wants you to buy the professional version for that.

I think that's ridiculous. I will not buy another updated version of Dragon until they make it compatible with Outlook.

Otherwise, the product works well although it is resource intensive.

In fact, I dictated this review with it.

Frankly, I'd much rather have it work with Outlook than with Web forms.

Pros Works extremely well, can type out letters and reports very quickly

Cons Takes a lot of computing power, and sometimes interferes with system hangups (usually they go away)

Summary I don't know why people say this is an expensive program with laborious set up -- I say this is absolutely the opposite. If you do research you will find that this program is extremely reasonably priced. It is also easy to set up -- takes about 15 minutes of reading.

In the last two years I have developed a disability and my hands were I am unable to use the keyboard or mouse without a lot of pain. Dragon NaturallySpeaking got me through my final year of college, and now enables me to be productive in my workplace.

Now that I have learned about it, even if my hands were to heal, I would still use this program. There is no reason not to -- it is so easy! And, as much as I really love typing (which I do), this is much faster than even my quickest best typing at about 70 words per minute.

I highly recommend this program. Just make sure you have the RAM to support it.

Pros OK for at-the-computer dictating

Cons Training Dragon away from the computer is so rigid as to make the application useless for that purpose.

Summary Training Dragon to accept your speech with a lousy cheap microphone attached to your computer works without problems.

However, buy a high-quality Digital Voice Recorder and submit training dictations: trouble.

Dragon requires training dictations of a minimum 15 minutes duration. However, if there is something wrong with your dictation - too much noise, too much clipping, etc. - Dragon rejects your training dictation, and you have wasted more than 15 minutes. Worse: you get a generic rejection notice that provides no clues specific to your dictation.

If you have to make several tries, and they fail, you can waste enormous amounts of time and get literally nothing for your efforts.

They could fix this problem by allowing test runs of 1-2 minutes, but their UI is very rigid.

If all you want to do is talk to your computer, Dragon is OK. I could see using it if I had difficulties with hands or arms, for example.

But if you want to use this for transcribing reports, do what I did: use a human transcriptionist.