Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Preferred
Manufacturer: Nuance Communications, Inc. Part number: A109A-G00-10.0
- More product information:
- Editors' review
- User reviews
- Specifications
- Product series
- Manufacturer info
- Bottom Line:
- Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 isn't perfect, but it's the best dictation software available. We don't find this upgrade necessary for the most basic dictation, although new features may benefit heavily accented English speakers and those who rely heavily on voice commands.
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CNET editors' review
Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Preferred price range: $101.99 - $201.14
- Reviewed by: Elsa Wenzel
- Reviewed on: 08/21/2008
- Released on: 08/07/2008
The good: Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 adds support for regional accents; new Voice Shortcuts for Vista and the Web, including YouTube and Wikipedia; hands-free browser commands; no new system requirements; custom-built Bluetooth headset option.
The bad: The pricey license of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 serves only one user; rocky installation on Windows Vista; no Mac option; poor audio quality on included headset led to poor results.
The bottom line: Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 isn't perfect, but it's the best dictation software available. We don't find this upgrade necessary for the most basic dictation, although new features may benefit heavily accented English speakers and those who rely heavily on voice commands.
Who wants to risk or aggravate carpal tunnel syndrome at a keyboard? People who suffer repetitive stress injuries, type slowly, or dictate long documents for work are among the best candidates for Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10, which types as you talk. While not perfect, it's the best consumer tool available for digital dictation and can save time and headaches for the right user.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking's maker, Nuance, estimates that built-in speech-to-text capabilities in Windows Vista are about five years behind those of this application. You could get by with such features in Windows for occasional use, but Dragon is deeper and more accurate.
Version 10 is supposed to be 20 percent more accurate than its predecessor, both which supposedly offer greater than 99 percent accuracy. However, that won't likely translate to your personal experience. We found success with about four out of five spoken words. Should we blame our lisping, soft-spoken ways, the software, or the hardware?
The updates to Dragon 10 include support for people with accented English, as well as voice-command shortcuts for supported applications and Web searches. Dragon NaturallySpeaking is supposed to translate spoken words to text twice as quickly as version 9. We couldn't measure that, but did notice a speed improvement.
Setup and interface
Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 runs only on Windows XP or 2000 SP4 or higher or on Vista, so Mac users are out of luck. (ViaVoice for the Mac, which uses Nuance's technology, is no longer updated.) It requires 512MB of RAM and 1GB of free hard-drive space. You'll also need a noise-canceling headset microphone, a 16-bit or equivalent sound card, and a DVD drive.
If you only need a tool to type as you talk and don't want to dictate commands to software or for Web searches, then opt for the $99 Standard edition of Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Preferred, for $199, includes software voice commands as well as support for mobile devices. Preferred Mobile adds a digital voice recorder.
We tested the $899 Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional 10, which adds support for forms, networking capabilities for an office, and the choice of a standard or Bluetooth headset. We wish a USB headset were an option; you'll have to buy a dongle to hook up the mic-in headset to a USB slot. The $1,199 Legal edition also helps you dictate briefs and court documents.
Make sure to uninstall an earlier version of Dragon if you have one. And if you already have the latest version on a PC, don't overwrite it with a lesser-featured version that may be bundled with a new, supported digital voice recorder.
Installing Dragon 10 on two Windows XP machines took around 20 minutes without incident. Unfortunately, Windows Vista installation was a nightmare. It took more than 10 minutes to install Visual C++ 8.0 Runtime, only to find out it hadn't fully installed. Or had it? We were caught in a catch-22 of circular commands after rebooting more than a dozen times. The issue was related to a known bug in Windows Vista. We spent what amounted to more than two hours with a polite, bright tech support representative who offered a workaround.
Once it's running, Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 adds a small feature bar that sits atop other open applications on your desktop. The well-organized pull-down menus haven't changed from the past. The text will "type" pretty much wherever a cursor appears, including word processing pages, Web form fields, and the included DragonPad.
Dragon performs a microphone check during setup. When our volume was too low on the Windows Vista laptop, we couldn't use the software. Somehow reading our frustrated mind, it typed "I hate you I" when we said, "Type. Type!" Saying "crazy" got spelled out as "greasy." Then "greasy," spoken, translated to "leafy," then "greens fee," then "Greenstein." In fact, the included headset didn't deliver adequate voice quality to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking at all. We reverted to the same headset packaged with Dragon 9, with better results.
Training is optional, but we recommend stepping through its paces to get Dragon up to speed with your speech patterns. The software can also scan the documents and e-mails on your computer to look for commonly used words.
Features
New to this update is support for accents which include, oddly enough, Teen English alongside American, Australian, Southern Asian, British, Dutch, French, German, Italian, and Spanish accents. And there's improved QuickVoice formatting. For instance, now you can utter the command, "Underline The Grapes of Wrath" to underline the book's title, which took two steps with previous versions.
In addition, Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 introduces Voice Shortcuts that enable you to look things up online quickly in your default browser. Tell Dragon to "search YouTube for Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream Speech,'" and relevant results appear on YouTube. The same applies for Wikipedia, eBay, and Amazon. Dragon 10 is also built to search within Windows Vista folders and in Google Desktop.
This application supports commands in Microsoft Word, Corel WordPerfect, Microsoft Outlook Express, Internet Explorer, and AOL. Using Dragon with the Google Docs online word processor was trickier in our tests than with Microsoft Word 2003 or 2007. People with disabilities can mostly drop the mouse and the keyboard, asking Dragon to do the work for them. But if you have the choice, we still prefer manual controls to the tedious attempts at using Dragon to cut and paste chunks of text within a long document.
The more you use Dragon, correcting its errors and adding your own lingo to its vocabulary, the better it gets. It already recognizes everything from "a cappella" to "smiley-face" to "ZZ Top." Abbreviations and tech slang work, too; speaking "dot ASP" spells ".ASP" and saying "smiley-face" will spell out this character: :-) Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 has the intelligence to detect words within context. For example, it knows to type "eating a carrot" instead of "eating a karat."
You don't need to speak like a robot into the mic, although enunciating helps. If you tend to mumble, then act as if you're reading a book to a child or a teleprompter for a newscast when using Dragon. Out of the box, the application does very well with long, polysyllabic words. But we've found it difficult for Dragon versions 8, 9, and 10 to distinguish between short words with similar vowel sounds, such as "a," "the," and "of."
You can plug in a variety of voice recorders for Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 to transcribe your own voice. The application supports MP3, WAV, and WMA audio files. You can create a profile of your voice for a mobile recording device, such as a Pocket PC handheld. After you record your thoughts on the go, you can feed Dragon that sound file later for transcription.
Unfortunately, the Dragon 10 license is only good for one user. To the woe of journalists and college students, Dragon won't transcribe your recording of, say, an interview subject or a college professor.
Service and support
Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 includes free telephone or online chat support for one installation incident, without which we wouldn't have been able to run Windows Vista installation. Step-by-step setup help and tutorials are excellent. We found the searchable online knowledgebase to be well organized. Peer support is also available online.
User reviews
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Adequate..but NOT Great!
by dexhu on August 25, 2008
Pros: Good for making rough drafts!
Cons: Terrible Tech Support!
Summary: BE AWARE! You have to PAY for any Tech Support you need! I have been using Dragon Naturally Speaking(DNS)for several years and it was a SHOCK when I ...
Summary: BE AWARE! You have to PAY for any Tech Support you need! I have been using Dragon Naturally Speaking(DNS)for several years and it was a SHOCK when I had to get Tech Support and would have to PAY for it!
DNS is great for quick and dirty dictation and has some very good features! But you have to PROOF Read! It does work good in Chat and using commands! I recommend it to take some of the drudgery out of writing and getting your ideas down quickly! But don't have any problems with it! It'll COST you!
Nuance has a cavalier policy about changing their Tech Support to better serve you!7 out of 7 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Beware the money trap!
by ordo3 on December 13, 2008
Pros: Probably the best speech recognition program available
Cons: Tech support is DISGRACEFUL!
Summary: After buying a Dragon Naturally Speaking program a while back I suffered some grave health problems and spent a year in and out of hospitals. When I finally returned to ...
Summary: After buying a Dragon Naturally Speaking program a while back I suffered some grave health problems and spent a year in and out of hospitals. When I finally returned to using my program, I found something that didn't seem to work the way the User Manual said. Upon lookiing up tech support I found that after the first instance, which I had used, they charged substantial bucks for any other consult. Thus, a user who needs help can easily spend as much for tech support as he did for the program. BEWARE this company!
4 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Buggy With Terrible Support
by ogman on September 5, 2008
Pros: Not bad recognition.
Cons: The company couldn't care less about their customers
Summary: The program does not always perform as it should and there are undocumented limitations. Support is expensive and inept. If you have a previous version that works well, stick with ...
Summary: The program does not always perform as it should and there are undocumented limitations. Support is expensive and inept. If you have a previous version that works well, stick with it. If not, you might want to try the VR in Vista.
4 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.
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STOP BEWARE AVOID THIS VERSION!!
by Niel101 on May 29, 2009
Pros: Nice interface and recognition works well out of the box. Clearly time has been spent on accents.
Cons: After the pleasure of setting up and seeing quite good 90% accuracy you move to the correction phase... Here is where it gets tricky. The program freezes and you lose all your work!! Yes all of it. I have used Dragon since 1999 with good results...
Summary: Version 9 & 9.5 were great. With 10 they took a great product and wrecked it. The whole point of getting the program is to improve productivity. If you ...
Summary: Version 9 & 9.5 were great. With 10 they took a great product and wrecked it. The whole point of getting the program is to improve productivity. If you use this program seriously you will have major problems. If you have version 9 or 9.50 KEEP THEM! I have wasted $1000.00 Australian on this. I hope that my comments assist anyone out there who wants to get good speech recognition to hang onto version 9 or 9.5 or else look elsewhere. This time Dragon got it seriously wrong.
3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Version 10 doesn't even work w. VISTA 64 bit system
by brucego on April 1, 2009
Pros: I read many reviews on line. Many reviews indicate you have to train the program to understand you. You might have the patience but you will probably give up and go back to typing
Cons: Nuance, the Creators of Dragon Naturally Speaking are impossible to reach unless you want to pay for a service call. Their web site and phone service is maddening. One time they transferred me and I got a construction company in Florida!
Summary: When I said I wanted to upgrade to the 10.1 version that works with VISTA 64 bit version, they wanted to charge me $29.99 for the upgrade. This ...
Summary: When I said I wanted to upgrade to the 10.1 version that works with VISTA 64 bit version, they wanted to charge me $29.99 for the upgrade. This was after I bought the program which I assumed would work with new Windows versions. That's not asking too much, right? I thought the customer service person was nasty! She suddenly put me when I said I bought the product from an ebay vendor. I waited seven minutes for her to come back and gave up. It was one of the worst buying experiences I ever had. They have a maze of menus that lead to you having to pay for help or call another number and then have to pay!
Microsoft has a free version of voice recognition that is free with Vista. If you are going to be forced into investing time getting the product trained, you might as well use the free program. I wonder how much money is wasted on voice recognition software that people give up on because it is so damn inconvenient. It joins the exercise equipment in the dumps of America. You have to be in a quiet place. You can't listen to music. You have to correct mistakes all the time and ruin your concentration. Corrections are needed like, "Too," not, "two." Damn it, Not dam it! "Waste of money" not "Waist of money!"2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Why buy if tech support is bad?
by wilsonmar2 on October 17, 2009
Pros: The premise for this product is based on sci-fi movies showing people dictating and computers understanding.
Cons: Results from this product are not like you see in movies.
Summary: I wish people would read user complaints before buying. All I got from their email support was canned emails. It's obvious that they didn't read what I wrote. ...
Summary: I wish people would read user complaints before buying. All I got from their email support was canned emails. It's obvious that they didn't read what I wrote. I wasn't able to log in to their website, and they kept sending me the same reply over and over.
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Dragon 10 Works fine and now has 64 bit support
by voicerecognition on August 2, 2009
Pros: Easy to set up, fast to train. Accurate with a decent headset like the Nc181USB from http://www.voicerecognition.com.au/nc181vm_usb_microphone.htm
Cons: Included mic is garbage
Summary: Dragon 10 didnt start well for mw. The included mic is really bad and not USB. My friend got me on to http://www.voicerecognition.com.au/nc181vm_usb_microphone.htm and ...
Summary: Dragon 10 didnt start well for mw. The included mic is really bad and not USB. My friend got me on to http://www.voicerecognition.com.au/nc181vm_usb_microphone.htm and I got the NC181USB mic overnight from these guys and my Dragon improved by 200%.
Your wasting your time with the stock mic, get the NC181USB1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Dragon 10.1 works on Vista x64 but ...
by bellemead on June 18, 2009
Pros: Good accuracy and speed
Cons: Take it or leave it company attitude.
Summary: The best voice dictation software available, which isn't saying much since it's about the only thing available. Fortunately, I have used Dragon for years and had no technical ...
Summary: The best voice dictation software available, which isn't saying much since it's about the only thing available. Fortunately, I have used Dragon for years and had no technical issues since their lack of free technical support is a ripoff.
Stick with Preferred unless you absolutely need commands in which case you will pay dearly for the privilege.
There are two isses with Dragon 10 that go back to Dragon Dictate that have irked me: First, New-Paragram produces two presses of the enter key. You can now change it to one press but it sends a different code since it makes New-Paragraph behave like the New-Line command. The behaviour of New-Paragraph and New-Line are different in Word.
Second, if you say "five thousand dollars" you get $5000 (no comma). There's no way to change the behaviour (at least from what I've seen). It only puts commans in 5 digit and higher numbers.1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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As of April 2009 Vista 64bit Support!!
by Oxnyx on April 5, 2009
Pros: General it works in quiet envirment
Much better then a very years agoCons: poor and Small corded mic ships with it better of to head down to the computer store and buy something else
Summary: Finally they put in Vista 64 bit support...about time.
Product is an improvement if you haven't updated lately
$50 dollar mail in rebate for upgraders! :)Summary: Finally they put in Vista 64 bit support...about time.
Product is an improvement if you haven't updated lately
$50 dollar mail in rebate for upgraders! :)1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Version 10 Preferred works with Outlook 2007 !
by Sylvain543 on March 22, 2009
Pros: Seems faster than previous version
Cons: Price
Managing user files to different locationsSummary: I have been using version 9 on Windows Vista for a while and one day I decided to buy Outlook 2007 - that was a nighmare. The mouse cursor was ...
Summary: I have been using version 9 on Windows Vista for a while and one day I decided to buy Outlook 2007 - that was a nighmare. The mouse cursor was jumping all over the place - I just couldn't use DNS with Outlook anymore - and I was so frustrated, as it was my main application using DNS. I just bought DNS version 10 with the hope the problem was addressed. And it works just fine ! even if it is stated that only the more expensive versions are supporting Outlook 2007.
Hope that this may help some users1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
Specifications
- Manufacturer: Nuance Communications, Inc.
- Part number: A109A-G00-10.0
- Description: Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Preferred gives small business and advanced PC users the power to create documents, reports and emails three times faster than most people type - with up to 99% accuracy. Surf the Web by voice or dictate and edit in Microsoft Word and Excel, Corel WordPerfect, and most other Windows-based applications. Create voice commands to quickly insert blocks of texts or images - such as your name, title, and signature. Dictate into a handheld device when you're away from your PC, or use a Bluetooth microphone for the same great dictation results without the wires. A high-quality headset is included.
General
- Category Office applications
- Subcategory Office applications - voice recognition
- Version 10
- Bundled with Noise-canceling headset microphone
- License pricing Standard
Software
- License Type Complete package
- License Qty 1 user
- License Pricing Standard
- Platform Windows
- Distribution Media DVD-ROM
- Package Type Retail
System Requirements
- OS Required Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows Vista SP1, Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or later, Microsoft Windows 2000 SP4 or later
- Software Requirements Internet Explorer 6.0 or later
- Min Processor Type 1 GHz, 1 GHz, 1 GHz, 1 GHz, 1 GHz
- Peripheral / Interface Devices DVD-ROM, Speaker(s), Microphone, 16 bit sound card, Internet connection
- System Requirements Details Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or later - Pentium - RAM 512 MB - HD 1 GB, Microsoft Windows 2000 SP4 or later - Pentium - RAM 512 MB - HD 1 GB, Microsoft Windows Vista - Pentium - RAM 1 GB - HD 1 GB, Microsoft Windows 2000 Server - Pentium - RAM 512 MB - HD 1 GB, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 - Pentium - RAM 512 MB - HD 1 GB
Product series
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Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Professional
Manufacturer: Nuance Communications, Inc.
Specs: 1 user, Complete package, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows Vista SP1, Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or later, Microsoft Windows 2000 SP4 or later, 1 GHz, 10, DVD-ROM, Speaker(s), Microphone, 16 bit sound card, Internet connection, Windows, Internet Explorer 6.0 or later
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Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Preferred
Manufacturer: Nuance Communications, Inc.
Specs: 1 user, Complete package, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows Vista SP1, Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or later, Microsoft Windows 2000 SP4 or later, 1 GHz, 10, DVD-ROM, Speaker(s), Microphone, 16 bit sound card, Internet connection, Windows, Internet Explorer 6.0 or later
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Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Standard
Manufacturer: Nuance Communications, Inc.
Specs: 1 user, Complete package, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows Vista SP1, Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or later, Microsoft Windows 2000 SP4 or later, 1 GHz, 10, DVD-ROM, Speaker(s), Microphone, 16 bit sound card, Internet connection, Windows, Internet Explorer 6.0 or later
Manufacturer info
- Nuance Communications, Inc.
- Manufacturer profile
- Browse Nuance Communications, Inc. products on Shopper.com
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- Website: http://www.scansoft.com/
- Address:
9 Centennial Drive
Peabody, MA 01960 - Phone: (781) 565-5000
- Fax: (781) 565-5001
