Review by KWJ

I’ve been using Dragon Dictation products for years, ever since it’s first product, Naturally Speaking, shipped with a handheld dictation device that would capture your dictation, or instructions to send email, and then transfer it over a hard-wired connection into a Windows PC. The product was way ahead of its time then. This new version for Mac feels like it has a little catching up to do.

At least with current versions, you don’t have to read nearly an hour of text to train it to learn your voice and speech patterns. While there is still some of that, it’s greatly reduced and gives you immediate feedback if there’s a problem with interpretation. Also a plus for the current version are the video tutorials which provide a detailed getting started primer for those who are new to the program. I found these tutorials helpful even though I’ve had a lot of experience with Dragon products.

My test of dictation into Word went well, with less than 1% of what I dictated being interpreted incorrectly, and even that was mostly due to the technical words I used not being in normal public vocabulary.

The only real disappointment for me was the sluggishness with which the software responded to commands aimed at the computer, i.e, open Word, email John, etc. I’m on a MacBook Pro with full RAM, so the system isn’t the issue. It just seemed response times to commands were slower than they should be, as though the software was trying to figure out exactly what Word was, and how to open it. While it does get the requested programs open, and takes dictation into them expertly, I was expecting more. Could be my expectations are too high, but I don’t think so.

The more I use Dragon, the better it responds. It’s true that it is constantly adjusting itself to your voice and speech patterns, so I’ve noticed improvement in dictation. I have no problem with the program crashing as others have reported, and generally find it easy to dictate anything that I would normally type, with the exception of numbers into a spreadsheet. But who would want to dictate those?nnI recommend this program to Mac users as a good dictation interface. Don’t expect it to behave like it does in the TV commercials. It’s not THAT fast.

I didn’t use it to dictate this review because, frankly, I can type faster than I can dictate (there’s something tactilely efficient about going directly from thought to fingers for me). I’m hoping upgrades will improve the command-to-computer portion of the program as I’ve found I really enjoy being able to do something else, while requesting a program be opened, or an email be sent.