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Voice Recognition Software Reviews
Updated May 2008
The best reviews of voice-recognition software cover all the alternatives in what are several distinct one-horse races. Almost every reviewer reaches the conclusion that Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 is the by far best third-party voice-recognition software program. Testers achieve an average of about 95 percent accuracy after brief training. However, Dragon NaturallySpeaking is extremely demanding of even state-of-the-art computers. It requires Windows 2000 SP4, XP or Vista and 512 MB of RAM with 1 GB of free hard-drive space. This means that your system will partially dictate which speech-recognition program is best for you. The only true competitor of Dragon NaturallySpeaking is Windows Speech Recognition, software that's included in all versions of Windows Vista, the Microsoft operating system released in January 2007. Microsoft is not touting this voice-recognition feature, possibly because a premature demo resulted in a well-publicized failure. Despite that pre-launch foible, the most recent reviews indicate that Windows Speech Recognition is much better than it appeared in that disastrous unveiling. Only a few voice-recognition reviews compare it with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 (*est. $60 and up, depending on version), and those state that the newcomer is very competitive. The most comprehensive reviews say that Dragon NaturallySpeaking still retains the crown, but determine that the qualitative difference is slight. If you have Windows Vista, plan to buy a new computer or to upgrade to Windows Vista, reviews identify no reason to also spend money on Dragon NaturallySpeaking. If you're sticking with Windows XP for the foreseeable future, reviews say Dragon is the only current voice-recognition software program that will run under XP with Service Pack 2 (it also works with Vista). We found several excellent reviews of voice-recognition software. David Pogue's reviews in The New York Times compare Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 with alternatives for Windows and Macintosh, as well as with Windows Speech Recognition. Several customer reviewers at Amazon.com compare other programs they've used with the product they recently bought. Most professional reviews
say that although accuracy has improved out of the box, the differences
between versions 8 and 9 of Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice-recognition
software are subtle and probably not worth the upgrade expense. For
that reason, we consider reviews of version 8 to still have some merit,
though reviews of version 9 are obviously more useful. The major difference
is that version 9 does not have to be trained to adjust to your speech,
enabling faster setup. Nevertheless, all reviewers find that NaturallySpeaking
9 voice-recognition software works better if you take the time to train
it.
... Continued
Our Consensus Report shows how many times products are top-ranked by reviewers included in our
The numbers in our chart point out the obvious: Dragon, the brand that's long held the lead in consumer products, is still tops in reviews. Not a single reviewer recommends IBM ViaVoice over Dragon, but if you have an old computer and really want speech-recognition software, it's your only option. Conversely, if you have -- or plan to buy -- a new computer, reviewers see little advantage to use Dragon over Windows Speech Recognition (included in all versions of Windows Vista). MacSpeech Dictate is currently the best option for Mac users who aren't running two operating systems (Mac and Windows). Advertisement
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Voice Recognition Software Reviews |
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© 2008 ConsumerSearch, Inc. A service from 
, a part of The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved.
ConsumerSearch and ConsumerSearch.com are registered trademarks of ConsumerSearch, Inc. Other trademarks or service marks on this site are the property of their respective owners. ConsumerSearch is not sponsored by any source reviewed, and we accept no consideration or payment for including, excluding, or ranking any reviews, products or services in our reports.
* Pricing information is approximate as of the time this report was written and is based on observed market selling prices and/or list prices. Actual selling prices may differ.
