Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12 Basics, English (Old Version)

I'm a long-time Dragon user. I'm a ghostwriter, which means that I do a ton of phone interviews and then transcribe them so I have material to work with when I write books. I don't use the program for anything other than that-- I just use it in conjunction with Word. The program was pretty terrible in its earliest versions-- accuracy was lousy. But my last version before this was 10, and accuracy had improved a lot.Then I involuntarily got Windows 8. That is, I bought a new computer and it came with Windows 8. My Dragon 10 wouldn't work with it, so I'd have to get version 12 if I wanted to continue using it. Early reviews suggested that it was not fully compatible with Windows 8, so I held back and used the built-in dictation program on Windows... which is better than nothing, but ended up being extremely inaccurate and frustrating. When the price dropped, I decided to go ahead and try out Dragon 12.Well! It's actually 12.5 now. They've released a new upgrade, which you get free with the program. When you install, you just have to tell it to check for updates and it'll automatically install 12.5. (Don't pay extra on other sites for version 12.5!) Apparently that has improved compatibility with Windows 8.Basics has the same accuracy as Home, but some bells and whistles are missing, limiting its use with e-mail and cell phones, apparently. For my purpose, that doesn't matter at all. I need it for a very "basic" purpose-- just for use with Word.All I can say is WOW... it works wonderfully! I just transcribed an 8-page interview nearly flawlessly. The minor errors here and there were easily correctable. I was amazed by how much better this worked than any program I've tried before, AND I wasn't even using a high-end microphone-- I just used the one that came with it. I did my 4 minutes of training, and it worked so well that I barely had to glance at the screen to make sure it was transcribing correctly.One of the great improvements is the headset-- it must be a noise-filtering one, because it no longer tries to pick up the voice on my tape recorder in the background or ask "What was that?" when the phone rings or something. It just homes in on my voice really well.I had no problems with installation or use, and I'm thrilled to be back in business. This cuts my workload way down and I'm so happy I upgraded. Better yet, I'm glad I upgraded at a ridiculously low price.

This product I did not like it at all!!!!! First of all the training to read so that the computer understands your voice well guess what that took forever to do and guess what yeah your right it still does not understand my voice. I wrote 4 books and I knew it would be a blast just to speak the books and I will be on my way. Looks like I have to type it after all now it could be that I got a cheaper version and I could have used a better quality then the one I bought. I am not giving up I believe its the version that I bought might not have been as efficient as it could have been. I don't recommend the 12 Basic. I called and spoke to someone about the product but like most things their job is to get you to buy it no matter what.

Like the first version ,installation was large , the training was faster but there was always a conflict with other items and the sound card. The fact that it always ran in the background slowed the system down so much, I just uninstalled it. I figured it would speed things up for me and it did to an extent but created too many other problems that i made no progress with it installed

good product, i was happy with what i got. not easy to learn but will come in handy. thank you

It does not work well. My husband is legally blind and can not read the text for it to register his voice. It needs to have where you can just speak into the microphone for it to register your voice and not have such a small screen to try and read

Dragon NaturallySpeaking this worked very well for me. I am new to Dragon speaking naturally and so far I think it is the best purchase I have recently made. I am writing this review using Dragon. It is far better than the Windows speech recognition program that I was using before. It is going to make it easier for me to do my homework. Thank you Dragon.Signed Albert Sadler

This product came amazon listing did not say software was dvd not cdr. Nuance tech was horrible they have no download for product even with your serial number. told me to copy dvd contents to thumb drive tried it on my wifes laptop twice with tech on phone the dvdrom crashed and blue screened the computer twice in a row. tech tolf me to go to friends house and copy it to thumb drive. this item us junk i returned it to Amazon. it was supposed to work on windows xp not CRASH the computer. caused me a repair issue ans lots of wasted time, buyer beware

I have been enjoying using my Dragon naturally speaking software since I bought it a couple months ago. I have been vigorously training the software, so that it now makes minimal mistakes, keeping in mind that I can transfer my profile to different computers.However, only today I found out I'm not able to transfer my profile with this basic edition, which is a disaster because I invested many hours to train the software. If I knew, I would have bought a premium edition because I have several computers and I was planning to install Dragon software in very near future, not to mention without the training every single computer.If you have one computer and you think you will not use again in your future computer, this basic edition is a good buy, otherwise you will be paying the price difference by your precious time and effort in training the software again from scratch. To me, it's not worth $50.FYI, you can install any edition of Dragon 12 software to up to 2 computers. I cannot speak for older versions.