A review of Dragon Naturally Speaking 11 Premium

Lately, I've been trying to reinvent myself as a writer. Back in the day when I worked as a radio operator, I could type like the wind. Now, perhaps because I'm trying to think and type at the same time, I tend to lose control of my fingers.

This led me to consider Dragon Naturally Speaking. I'd intended to purchase the basic Home edition but discovered the premium version was on sale. Sales always work for me.

I ordered the software from Tiger Direct. The total came to $143.88 including tax and shipping. That's a lot of money, but Nuance offered a sixty dollar rebate. Within ten days the package arrived.  I completed the rebate process and settle down to test the software.

I'm not a gamer, and know little about headsets. That said, the included headset is comfortable and seems fairly sturdy. It connects snugly to the sound and microphone inputs on my computer.

Installation is straightforward. Once completed, I read a brief passage to allow Naturally Speaking to learn my particular voice pattern. This might have been enough to get started, but I volunteer to read extra text - I tend to mumble and wanted to give this program a fighting chance.

My test computer is HP Compaq DC5850 business machine. It contains an AMD 64 dual core 5400B processor, running at 2800 MHz. This computer holds 4 GB of RAM and runs Windows 7 business X64. Not a speed demon, but quite competent.

This software's abilities vary according to the power of the computer onto which it is installed. Once the installation process completed, I was informed that, in order to allow Naturally Speaking to perform at its best, some functions were disabled. These concerned commands used to control various functions of programs such as Microsoft Word.  For a list of of minimum and recommended computer/operating system specifications please go to the Nuance website.

I purchased Dragon Naturally Speaking with the intention of writing the great Canadian zombie novel without having to mess around with a keyboard. I also wanted to access the Internet using voice commands. This works, after a fashion. I could easily load my browser and search a topic. I couldn't, however, open my Bookmark folder on Firefox and select a bookmark.

WRITING WITH NATURALLY SPEAKING

I tend to mumble. In addition, I have problems with the th sound - it comes out like a hiss. Although I'm a miserable candidate for speech recognition software, Naturally Speaking actually worked. Not perfect, but far superior to what I expected.

The best method is to speak in complete sentences at a normal rate. I also found it preferable to speak without looking at the screen. It takes time for the software to decrypt my voice input and, when I'm watching, I tend to stop and wait for it to catch up. That's bad because a hesitation can confuse the program.

Corrections are easy but sometimes frustrating. Perhaps I said poke and the program understood it to be mote.  Simply saying correct mote - poke, will generally fix the problem.  I could also have said correct mote.  This brings up a screen containing a list of words that could be used to replace mote. There is even a method of spelling the word, if the correct one is not listed. Sometimes, however, the mistakes snowball and my corrections are misunderstood or I misuse the commands. Then I shake my head and type the correction. One interesting point; NaturallySpeaking uses these correction to help improve how it recognizes the writer's speech.

Dragon Naturally Speaking demands a great deal of practice. I'm still not proficient, but the continuous improvement of my copy provides ample motivation. The software requires a quick computer with lots of memory. If your equipment just meet the minimum standard, you might find NaturallySpeaking to be frustratingly unresponsive. I'll tell you, though; it's nice to leave that keyboard behind.