MBA and Dragon Naturally Speaking

[lanray]

I'm thinking about getting a MBA in the near-ish future. I'd like to be able to use Dragon Naturally Speaking, the most recent version. I'd like to hear from folks who may be using this program on their MBA either booted into Windows and/or using an emulator in OSX. And, do you use a special mic?

Thanks.

 

[lanray]

take 2

Perhaps someone has a friend they know who's doing this? Maybe your friend's Dad's friend has something to offer about this?

 

[portent]

You can use DNS in Windows using Boot Camp, VMWare, or Parallels, but it would only work with Windows apps. You could not use it with, say, Apple Mail or Pages.

MacSpeech Dicatate uses the Dragon engine. It does not have all of the features of Dragon on Windows, but it will transcribe about as well.

 

[PDE]

I'm not using it right now on an MBA because I'm back on a MBP, but I did try it out for a few days on the MBA using Fusion and XP. Performance was very good, snappy and as reliable as it is on any PC. I've been using DNS for a few years first with bootcamp and then Parallels/Fusion, but I have to say what I've longed for is something equivalent on the mac side since I like working in OS X. I think the Macspeech people have finally introduced a product that eventually will be as good as DNS - the old macspeech stuff was appallingly bad in comparison. As I understand it, you can't edit in the new version using speech, but I presume they'll add that eventually and I'd wait until they do. It's a kind of strange omission in my view, but I guess they were eager to get it out the door.

So: yes, DNS works fine on a MBA with a USB microphone. My advice is to spend the necessary money on a high quality mic or you'll be frustrated. With DNS, I've used theBoom and plantronics wireless Cs50-USB , both of which are excellent in terms of accuracy and noise cancellation. The quality of the headset is extremely important!

 

[lanray]

Wow, Thanks!

Thanks for the advices. I appreciate them.

I checked out MacSpeech, and it seems pretty decent. Another question: if I'm using Parallels, for example, to run Dragon Naturally Speaking, can I tell it to write in Pages?

Alternately, it appears that you can use MacSpeech to write in a Windows program (e.g., Word) running in Parallels. Kind of cool.

Again, thanks.