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| Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 Preferred [OLD VERSION] | ![Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 Preferred [OLD VERSION]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51PrcsbemaL._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | From: Nuance Communications, Inc.
Category: Software
List Price: $199.99
Buy New: $82.99
You Save: $117.00 (59%)
New (23) Used (3) from $67.70
Avg. Customer Rating:  251 reviews
Sales Rank: 305
Format: Cd-rom
Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows Xp Home Edition, Windows Xp Professional
Media: CD-ROM
Edition: Preferred
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0.1 x 0
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
MPN: A109A-G00-9.0
Model: A109A-G01-9.0
UPC: 780420115095
EAN: 0780420115026
ASIN: B000H2049I
Release Date: July 25, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 The Bottom Line May 4, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I've decided to post an "interim" review even though I've only had the product for a few days. I read many of the conflicting reviews here so I know how difficult it is to determine if this software really works or if it's junk.
The PROS:
1.) Dragon actually does a very good job of recognizing dictation. Yes you need to spend 15 minutes training it, and yes I can see it will take some time to become a power user fluent with all of the commands and customize your personal vocabulary.
2.) Very good beginner tutorials to get you going as soon as it's installed.
The CONS:
1.) Arrogant company, difficult to deal with.
2.) They even charge for email support - can you believe it?!
3.) Hard to figure out next steps to learn more than beginner material. Yes there is a help section, but you're sort of lost with complicated technology (and you don't dare call tech. support). So you're unsure how/if you will get better over time, or should you just make a quick decision to return the product.
4.) It messes with your computer memory and does some shady things (I notice several "End now..." messages when I shutdown the computer now.
SUMMARY SO FAR:
If there was any competition to speak of Dragon would be in big trouble. But there isn't any, so if you want speech recognition you take it or you leave it.
It DOES actually do a very good job of speech recognition. Period. I can speak as fast as possible and it does a great job (note that I upgraded my memory to 2 Gb for XP Pro, and added a sound card to make sure that my system was up to snuff). Yes, you have to practise saying every word clearly, but my Mom told me that 30 years ago anyway.
 Puff the magic dragon May 4, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
When it works it works real well! However, there do seem to be a few bugs in it and sometimes I have trouble shutting it down. It also takes like 3 minutes to load and I have a pretty good computer with 2 GB of RAM. All in all though it is a very cool product for the tech savvy and people who like to take/make notes quickly. I recommend it.
Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 Preferred May 3, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This software works really good with transcriptions from the computer and really bad with transcriptions from Sony ICD-SX57 digital voice recorder.
I bought this software to transcribe my voice notes from my recorder, so I'm not the happiest with it.
In addtion, directions for interfacing the recorder with the NaturallySpeaking Preferred software are woefully incomplete. I finally got the interface to work, after many failures over a few days. I invested about 9 hours time to get it to work.
I opted to do everything I could think of doing to get this system running before calling Dragon's support line, since my luck with telephone help from most vendors has been dismal and multiple calls are needed. Dragon allows one free call to them for technical assistance and after that they charge $19.95 per call. They also charge $9.95 for email correspondence per incident.
The results of the transcription from the recorder to the computer are poor, slow, and work intensive. NaturallySpeaking garbles many of the words and takes over 20 minutes to transcribe 24 recordings of 15 second or less. There are so many corrections needed to the transcribed notes from the recorder that it is quicker and easier to listen to the recorded notes and transcribe them manually.
On the other hand, really good results are obtained transcribing dictation made directly into the computer.
Transcribing lengthy dictation from the recorder is much more accurate than transcribing the short notes from the recorder, similar to transcribing dictation made directly into the computer.
Most of my notes are 15 seconds or less; then numbers transcribe very well, the words do not transcribe well and are unrecognizable for the most part. (An example of what I record is: 12575 mileage at 222 Berkley Street, Boston; time 10:48 AM. [stop recording] 12618 mileage at WPI, Worcester; time 11:35 AM [stop recording] Review proposal to do in-house training on revised building code. [stop recording] Schedule certification training next week. ...and so forth]
The discrepancy in transcription quality between lengthy dictation and short dictation on the recorder may be due to positioning the recorder's microphone by my mouth, background noise, or something else. I am trying to identify the problem.
May 3, 2008
Works great with portable device. April 29, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I write sales presentations and blog articles. I get lots of good ideas while traveling. This tool is just what I hoped it would be. I dictate my thoughts into an Olympus VN-4100PC Digital Voice Recorder handheld recorder. Using the Olympus software, I transfer the file to my PC when I return from a trip. Using Version 9 Preferred, I simply click the "Transcribe" button and my thoughts are instantly turned into text. There are some errors in interpretation, but I accept those as only a minor inconvenience. These two tools, working together, are saving me hours of time manually transcribing and typing my thoughts. Even though I need to correct some minor points, it's so much faster and more efficient for me than my former way of dictating into a small tape recorder and then transcribing the tape myself. I'd give it five stars if it was perfect. In my experience (after only three days of playing with it) I would estimate that over 90% of my dictation is properly transcribed. What a great tool.
 It works April 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It works although don't assume that it's perfect. It works best if you speak in long "stream of consciousness" sentences. In that context, it's nearly 100% accurate. On the other hand, if you're dictating shorter, business-like sentences with frequent starts and stops, it's a little less accurate. In my business setting, it's best to dictate large concepts and just get the information into the machine. Then, with the keyboard, it's easy to move text around, add bullets, fix punctuation, and correct recognition errors. Overall, it saves a lot of wear and tear on your hands if you just want to get your thoughts down on paper.
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