Nuance Dragon Dragon NaturallySpeaking Home 13 (Old Version)

Easy to install, works almost effortlessly, helps my husband take notes for his academic courses, and may help me write the great American novel! I did have some trouble with tech support while installing - they tried to upsell me to a newer version when I reported that the microphone that came with the program was not interacting with the Dragon, and recommended I buy a new microphone with different connectivity. They also said that the sound drivers on my system were incompatible with the program. I was ready to return the product when I changed where I plugged in the microphone, and all worked perfectly. Tech support - bleh; product - great!

I am not an author but I occasionally write long e-mail messages. I bought this package because I was curious what voice recognition capability I could purchase for less than forty dollars. (My Windows 8.1 computer fortunately already contained ample RAM; Dragon is a memory hog.) I was surprised when I opened that package. In addition to the software DVD and brief instructions, the package contained a communications-grade wired stereo headset with attached boom microphone. The headset and microphone plug into the mini-jacks on the front of most desktop computers. The package also contains an adapter that will connect the headset and microphone to a single USB 2.0 port. Software installation is straightforward but ponderous. The installation user interface does not indicate ongoing progress, and I wondered if I was stalled in mid-install. After a long wait, installation finished normally. After registering the Dragon software on the Nuance Communications website, microphone proper operation is verified and Dragon then presents an interactive tutorial. The tutorial introduces voice recognition dictation concepts (explicit capitalization and explicit punctuation), and the tutorial highlights the online help functions available during Dragon dictation. I played with Dragon while using Microsoft Notepad, and I was impressed with Dragons accuracy and vocabulary, but voice recognition dictation (explicit capitalization and explicit punctuation) IMO is cumbersome, and only capitalization will improve as you personalize Dragons vocabulary. A later problem: Dragon attaches two apps to Internet Explorer, and my IE 11 began crashing in non-Dragon use. I used the IE star -> Manage add-ons function to disable the two Dragon-supplied apps. Instead of Dragon direct dictation with IE, I will dictate e-mail messages into Notepad, and then copy and paste the messages into my e-mail program, a practical compromise.

I have only been using this for one day, but I must say that so far I find it incredibly functional and easy to use. My microphone is Sennheiser PC 25-S. I am speaking naturally, without having to awkwardly enunciate all my words, and the accuracy is really high, 90% or more. Whats great, too, is that telling it to correct is easy. The user interface is helpful, and prompts you in straightforward intuitive ways. I look forward to working with this more, especially as the program is learning my speech patterns and vocabulary. I purchased this after reading a lot of user reviews, and after trying to use the built in Windows speech recognition (which totally sucked! even though I was using the same quality Sennheiser microphone and spoke clearly and slowly-- accuracy rate at best was 40 to 50%-- very frustrating). One thing that was a hitch, though, was that the program did not install properly from the CD disc onto my Windows 7 Pro 64 bit desktop. But a quick call to Nuances tech support solved the problem. They walked me through discovering that, in my case, it was a .dll error, the solution to which was to uninstall, then download a new installer online which they sent me a link to. That installation went smoothly and I was immediately able to work through dictation! Whew, I am so glad! This is an important first step for me to heal from the bad tendinosis I have in both arms from too much typing and mousing!

Easy to use! A must have if you are writing a book! I also believe it would be a great benefit for those in college. I sure would have been grateful if I would have had one in school. I also bought the book that explains more about it, however I didnt even need the book. I am more of one of those hands on kind of learners. Biggest problem I found was, you need a very good microphone, I got a Koss that works like a charm. The book I read weeks later is very good as well, learned a few tricks. It is called The Writers Guide To Training Your Dragon. Covers everything you have to know and some. I thought I would have a hard time, being it was years ago since I was in school. Lol Found myself patting myself on my back. I kinda laughed out loud and said to myself, either this is really easy or Ive gotten really smart in my old age! Thanks ever so much Amazon for Ive gotten my writing skills back to my friends, and its much easier than writing in a notebooks for my books.

I have had various editions of Dragon since version nine. The problem is, very often, it works a little differently than the last time. And sometimes it works much worse. Thats a pain in the butt. Also, changing mics is always an adventure. I use a good quality USB mic and it works much better. However, the mic that came with the program wont work with my profile created with the USB. So today, for instance, I only have the supplied-mic with me at the office, and Dragon is not going to let me use it without a fight. Now we know why they call it DRAGON!

EDITED_It is working now. It took a total of 6 hours and deleting and reinstalling it three times for it to finely work. Good product just way to difficult to get to work. I suggest 1 it needs to take less then 4 gb of space and it needs to load faster. I think this product could be better. IT IS NOT WORKING. After five hours of fighting with this it is not working. My mic works. My mic works on the computer. I hear my self from the mic. I go through the dang profile thing and when it says to test your mic and I go to turn on Dragons button it stays red and not green. It will not work.

I am using the Dragon (DS13) Software 13, and it is an extremely sharp tool. With his help, I do think my computer, and I can take over the internet. If I only had a brain, comes to mind, but this software is great! I recommend this product to any and every writer to preserve the quality of a penciled or penned draft. Have a nice word on me. DMF :)

Im dictating this review so you can get a sense of how accurate it actually can be. I usually need to make at least two or three minor corrections in one short paragraph. Dragon is a godsend for people who really have problems with their arms and cant type or input text the usual way. Dragon 13 does seem to be a improvement over Dragon 12; theres a considerable uptake in speed. A huge problem remains that it is practically dysfunctional in Microsoft Word. I use the dictation box or pad and then copy and paste my text into my word file. I did not have any particular problems with the installation, beyond the fact that it took a very long time (a few hours). Dictating this review, there was one major error: Dragon typed men instead of improvement. However, Dragon is typing the words almost as quickly as I can say them. I like that a lot.

Ive used three previous versions of Dragon (8,10 and 12), and was pretty lukewarm about those. But with 13 Home (and maybe with 12.5), theres some kind of corner that the recognition engine has made, and now its much more accurate, with relatively little training. Ive tried it on both my Windows 7 laptop and Windows 10 desktop with amazing results, where free flowing text is 90+ percent accurate, and often whole paragraphs are mistake-free. I did purchase a higher quality USB microphone, but even the unit that came with the CD was pretty accurate. However, my focus is on first drafts of longer emails, notes, and transcribing hand-written fiction into a computer document. I can easily churn out 1000 words in 10 minutes, spend one or two minutes manually correcting things, and its done. A great time saver. If expanding the use of the product to perform more detailed tasks or control your computer, then the expectations need to be adjusted. Its going to take more time to train it, and learn the limitations, with much more time necessary for the proper learning curve. I have not yet tried anything to complicated, but at least this version is going to allow me that option. Previous versions I just got frustrated with simple drafts.

I reduced my review from 5 to 3 stars because it has so many problems and they dont fix it. I have to ctrl+alt+del and force stop it. There is no way to make it shut off. It has also stopped backing up my files and I dont know how to make it restart again. If they fix this stuff, I will change my review back to 5 stars. I doubt it..... I am actually using NaturallySpeaking to write this review. I had Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9.0 before this, and it did pretty good. But I am shocked and amazed, and how awesome this program is! It is so good it can even tell the difference between end, and and. I put in these little marks because I dont know what you call them. LOL! It can even get things like (egr) correctly. I think this must be what Google uses to do their voice searches. I am doing emails, web searches, reviews like this one, chat sessions, and pretty much anything else that needs typing. Since I type with three fingers on my left hand (because I have my set up for mouse keyboard gaming) I type so slow its pathetic. But I can do this review in about a minute! And thats pretty awesome!