I've been a Dragon user for about 10 years now. In the early days, you -- had -- to -- pause -- after -- each -- word. A few years ago, Dragon came out with "continuous speech," which means exactly what it says: you didn't have to pause. The program's ability to recognize speech was fairly good, but there were always bugs. The software has been owned by a series of companies, from Kurzweil to Lernout & Hauspie to ScanSoft, and the software has improved slowly over time.
However, version 8 is a quantum leap in quality. Accuracy right out of the box is astonishing, approaching 99%. The company somehow tweaked the speech recognition engine, and the software uncannily recognizes what you are trying to say. As in previous versions, after you do about 15 minutes of training, the computer creates a statistical model of the way that you speak. It continues to refine that model as you correct any mistakes it may make. Also, you can add specialized vocabulary words from your documents. Finally, once you load in your documents, the program creates a statistical model of the way that you write, so that it can make educated guesses about what you are saying.
That doesn't mean that you can slur your words or mumble or leave words out altogether. You have to speak clearly. (Imagine imitating Peter Jennings' delivery.) And it helps to speak in longer phrases, rather than in isolated words, since the context of your words will help the computer to figure out what you're trying to say. Also, you have to proofread pretty carefully, since if the computer gets something wrong, the error isn't caught by your spellchecker: the error will be a real word. Thus, the classic error is "my computer can wreck a nice beach."
The Professional version (which is very expensive) allows you to create "voice macros," in which you can control the computer with voice commands. (I paid only $120 for an upgrade, but a new user will pay about $500.) With Professional, you can do almost anything by voice that you could do with a mouse and your keyboard. However, it appears that the speech engine for the cheaper Preferred version is almost the same as the speech engine in the Professional version. Thus, if you just want the computer to type, the Preferred version is probably adequate, and you can create some simple macros with Preferred.
But if you do a lot of writing (or, let's say, a lot of Excel work), the Professional version can save you a tremendous amount of time and effort, since you can give the computer instructions while you are doing something else with your hands (like reaching for a document). Also, the voice macros deploy much more quickly than you can "mouse" the same commands. In addition, the macros can combine multiple tasks: you can, for example, design a macro that opens an e-mail, copies the text, pastes it into your word processor, cleans out the extraneous codes, and saves the file, all in less time than it takes to read this sentence. Writing simple macros is very easy. Writing complicated macros is not as easy, but I think it's worth the effort.
There are some downsides (or least caveats): you need a really good computer to run the Professional version, preferably with one gig of RAM and a 3 GHz chipset. Otherwise, the computer can bog down, because the program keeps so much of your vocabulary in active memory. Also, it pays to get a really good microphone (such as a Sennheiser or Andrea noise canceling headset), rather than using the cheap microphone that comes bundled with the software. [There are a few good microphone vendors, and they stay actively involved in the online user support forums.] Finally, the microphones work well with sound cards on desktop computers, but they work better with USB pods on laptops, since the onboard sound card on a laptop is often inferior.
Although there are several forums available for Dragon users, ScanSoft (the current manufacturer of the program) doesn't offer very good tech support. But the user groups are so supportive that most folks can find their answer simply by posting a question on the forums. Judging by the comments on the forums, the great majority of people using this new version appear to be very happy. Some have had glitches during installation, and a few have experienced sluggish performance.
I used to tell people that if you can type well (and comfortably) for several hours a day, you're better off typing than using voice recognition software. I think that is no longer true: almost anyone will be more productive using version 8 than they would be with just the keyboard and a mouse.
And yes, every word of this review was dictated with Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional Version 8.
