Dragon Software Review – Is It Worth It?

Nuance Dragon Software Review 2021 – Get Things Done By Voice

With powerful speech recognition AI emerging, talking to devices is becoming the new normal. In this field, Nuance Dragon software offers professional tools that convert voice to text and gives its users flexibility on how they can communicate or process information. 

For professionals, for example, typing does not always come easy. A mundane task like typing documents, researching sources, and managing social media takes a lot of precious time. This time can otherwise be spent doing something more productive.  

In this post, I share my descriptive Nuance Dragon software review and outline features, pros and cons. Is it worth it? Let’s see and take a closer look at all the different versions. 

What is Dragon Software?

What is Dragon? Nuance Dragon software is voice recognition or dictation software. It’s easy to use and up to 99% accurate. That sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? However, it took a long time and effort to reach such levels of accuracy.

Nuance Dragon Software is certainly one of the best products here, but reaching an accuracy level of 99.9% will take even more effort. Such levels are essential to turn voice to text into a default interface for data input.

Who is behind? Nuance Communications is an American multinational corporation. They’re the pioneers in conversational AI and its use in day-to-day lives. Nuance develops software using artificial intelligence and deep learning technologies¹ and aims to deliver solutions that make life easier by optimizing everyday tasks.

What does it do? The Nuance Dragon suite offers various specialized text-to-speech solutions for individual, professional, legal or medical purposes. The deep learning technology used in Dragon software ensures that the software adapts to your voice and environmental variable. All that while it’s still dictating! 

Who is it for? Nuance Dragon software is a great choice for individuals, professionals and enterprises. Such precise AI technology, however, does come at a cost and there are certainly alternatives available too. Furthermore, apps become increasingly reliable to use dictation on mobile devices, for example and are often built-into the devices. 

However, if you wish to use this technology for ambitious projects and applications or serious work, Nuance Dragon software may be the better pick. Specialized versions like Professional, Legal, Anywhere, and Law enforcement are for professionals in the field. These versions offer fast dictation, high levels of accuracy, and more comfort. 

Nuance Dragon Software Review – 4 Versions

• Dragon Home: A speech-to-text solution for individuals and suitable for personal use. Easy to use coming with deep learning technology and high accuracy.
• Dragon Professional: Suitable for freelancers, professionals or businesses. Available in three editions. Based on Dragon Home with additions for business. 
• Dragon Legal: Speech recognition for legal professionals. It’s also available in three editions and has a solid command of legal vocabulary. 
• Dragon Anywhere: A cloud-based speech-to-text solution. You can access it on your mobile or PC. Easily create, store, and edit documents on the go!

Dragon Software Review – Recap

Developer: Nuance Communications, USA
Features: Deep Learning, Customized Commands
Language: English, French, German
Systems: Windows, Android, iOS
Versions: Home $150. Pro $300. | View Website.
Dragon Software Review Rating: ★★★★★ | 4.8

1. Nuance Dragon Home v15

Nuance Dragon Home (visit website.) is the simplest of the Dragon software suite. It’s a great speech recognition solution for students, freelancers and people working from home. If you love writing and want to stay up-to-date without having to type, then this is one way to go.

Dragon Home uses deep learning technology for faster typing and high accuracy. The latest version (v15) transcribes words about three times faster with up to 99% accuracy. 

You can dictate documents, manage calendars, social media, and emails. Home works great even in noisy surroundings and with various accents. It’s easy to surf the web via voice commands and you can program multi-step tasks into one simple command that triggers a Google search while using another application.

Who is it for? – The users of Nuance Dragon Home are students and people working from home. It’s a generic solution designed for everyday use. The software is easy to use for everyone, young and old.

Voice Recognition – Dragon Home features a full voice to text conversion with 99% accuracy. You can also execute commands, search, and browse the internet using voice. V15 also provides higher accuracy even in noisy environments and diverse accents. 

Dictation – For a student, this Dragon software offers an innovative way to dictate homework assignments, emails, and messages. If you’re working from home, you can automate most of your day-to-day tasks. Dictate your office documents, messages, appointments, and emails faster. It gives you more time and freedom to explore new arenas rather than routine activities.

Social Media Management – Since social media is a vital part of our lives, it’s worth noting that you can also manage your social media and mail with Dragon Home. Managing social media includes updating Facebook or Twitter status, navigating your accounts, speaking messages instead of typing with commands like “Post to Twitter”. 

Playback – The latest playback feature allows users to select a text and select “play that back”. You can then listen to the block of text. It’s quite a useful feature when you’re editing or proofreading a document.

Verdict – In a nutshell, the Dragon software home edition makes your life easier by eliminating the need to type everything! The pricing plan for Dragon Home starts at $150 for digital download with a 30-day money-back guarantee. You can also add a USB or Bluetooth headset at some extra cost:

Review: 4.7 ★★★★☆
Price: $150. Visit website. | Accessories: Bluetooth Headset. PowerMic.
Availability: Web | Windows | Mobile.

2. Nuance Dragon Professional

Dragon Professional (visit website) is available in three different editions and names. That can be pretty confusing for potential users and customers. Choose between Dragon Professional Individual (DPI), Dragon Professional Group (DPG) and Dragon Professional Anywhere (DPA). This Dragon software suite comes with all the features of the Home edition.

Who is it for? – Dragon Professional Individual (DPI) is suitable for those who need voice recognition for work. The individual can be a part of a small team or sole proprietor in a business. Dragon Professional Group (DPG)  is popular with businesses. The speech recognition and accuracy are excellent and perfect for an organization. 

Dragon Professional Anywhere (DPA) edition is particularly new. DPA is light-weight, scalable, and compatible with virtual environments. It’s a great option for companies that need compatibility with remote desktops and virtual environments². Note, all three editions of this Dragon software are not suitable or healthcare users. 

Dragon Professional – The speech recognition system in the Dragon Professional Individual edition is the same as the Home version. They both use deep learning and provide the same levels of accuracy. The features and IT administration tools in the two versions are different. Nuance supplies DPI as a license key and perpetual license.

Dragon Professional Group has further advanced scripting abilities. You can customize it to interface with other office software. Nuance Management Centre is also available in the Group edition. It enables organizations to see the users and their usage of the software (even the anywhere edition). It’s supplied as a perpetual volume license, with an option for annual maintenance and support (additional charges apply). 

Dragon Professional Anywhere is scalable and light-weight. It does not need a specific IT environment and use case. You can use other tools on your PC while still dictating text. Dragon Anywhere is available on a subscription-based model or a perpetual license.

Review: 4.8 ★★★★★
Pricing: Professional Individual $150. Visit website. | Group $600/user. $550/5-25 users.
Price: Dragon Professional Anywhere $15/month & $150 annual
Availability: Web | Windows | Mobile. | Accessories: Bluetooth Headset. PowerMic

Alternative Reading: If you think of dictating through voice as more of an add-on to your normal workflow and want to master the 10-finger system on keyboards too here is our round-up of the best typing software as well as a tutorial on how to type faster.

3. Nuance Dragon Legal

Nuance Dragon Legal is available in three editions, namely Dragon Legal Individual (DLI), Dragon Legal Group (DLG), Dragon Legal Anywhere (DLA). Each edition covers all the features of Dragon software Home and Professional, along with some extra features. 

Who is it for? – Dragon Legal is designed specifically for legal professionals. This version specializes in legal terminology, offering assistance to lawyers in their everyday work. Suitable for small to mid-sized law firms, it helps reduce and eliminate transcription time and cost.

The main use case is to dictate large and small documents quickly allowing to get the work done without having to type everything or hiring a full-time transcriber. 

Legal Indiviudal – For the ever-busy lawyers, Dragon Legal Individual offers a compliant assistant that is trained to use over 400 million words. You can also add custom words specific to your client base, or industries.

Legal Group – Keeping in mind the ever-growing needs of legal firms, this Dragon software offers the features of Dragon Legal to the whole firm and its employees. There are multiple packages available starting from five users up to twenty-six (and more). Employees can access the application from their home offices around the world.

Legal Anywhere – Dragon software Legal is also available as a cloud-based version, namely Legal Anywhere. Easy to install, you can use it on various devices and unlike DLI and DLG future updates are automatic. Along with everything else, it also provides support for client hardware and server virtualization. Legal Anywhere comes at no extra cost here.

Things to consider – Dragon Legal can cause issues for lawyers and legal firms. Regulations surrounding attorney-client confidentiality are pretty strict. If you or your firm is considering Dragon Software Legal, then pay close attention to the security of the files created and stored by Dragon Legal.

Review: 4.8 ★★★★★
Price: Individual $500. Visit website. | Legal Group $800/user license.
Multiple Users: $700/user license for 5-25 user licenses.
Availability: Web | Windows | Mobile. | Accessories: Bluetooth Headset. PowerMic

4. Nuance Dragon Anywhere

Smartphones and tablets are now so powerful that we can do most things we previously used laptops or desktops for, However, writing or editing documents on a mobile screen is still a pain. It not only takes longer, but it is also a tedious task. 

Who is it for? – Nuance Dragon Anywhere is a mobile, cloud-based app to use voice as your main interface to input and edit data or information. It achieves professional-grade accuracy. Anywhere is marketed as a suitable solution for enterprises (DAG) and individuals (DAI) to edit and create documents on the go.

Features – Dragon Anywhere is suitable for those who need increased flexibility and cross-platform functionality paired with high accuracy. You can access this software on multiple devices such as tablets, smartphones, laptops, and PCs. Start your dictation in one device, and continue in another.

Cloud-based – You can store unlimited documents and import and export documents from popular cloud-based document-sharing tools such as Evernote and Dropbox.

Anchored Text – Easy dictation means that even if you’re using another application (like a browser for research), you can also dictate alongside. The text anchor will keep your text flow intact even if the cursor is wandering elsewhere.

Good to know – Dragon Anywhere is a cloud-based architecture, which provides flexibility. However, this also means that your confidential data is stored in a remote location. For people working in legal, or law enforcement, this may create security issues. 

Nuance Dragon’s data policy also requires your consent that speech data (including confidential data) is stored in a server located in the United States of America. The data includes audio files, log files, and transcriptions.

Review: 4.7 ★★★★☆
Price: $15/month. $150/year. Visit website. Trial available.
Availability: Cloud-based. Web | Windows | Mobile.
Requirements: iOS 9.3.5 upwards | Android: 5.0+ phones and tablets

Dragon Software Review – Pros and Cons

Wrapping up our Dragon software review, let’s look at some of the more general pros and cons. The market is still emerging and one or two years here can not only bring better accuracy or features but also new products or make some redundant at all.

Dragon software is certainly one of the most recognized players in this field, but voice to text is also increasingly built into our devices. Just think of Alexa, Siri or Cortana and the type of services they offer. It’s a tough competition.

Though not perfect at all, this technology is getting better and better. To decide whether a professional Dragon software is suitable, consider all use cases and how its specialized versions would help you get things done faster or ease the workflow in general.

Pros	Cons
Excellent voice recognition and accuracy	Expensive
Adaptable deep learning technology	Limited choice in languages
3x faster voice to text conversion
Wireless dictation via iOS and Android apps
Faster editing with the playback feature
Cloud-based architecture (Dragon Anywhere)

Dragon Software – System Requirements

To use any of the mentioned Nuance Dragon software, users should ensure the following system specifications:

• RAM: 4GB Min 
• CPU: Intel dual-core processor or an AMD equivalent 
• Hard Disk: 8GB (free)
• System: Microsoft Windows 7, 8.1, 10 (32, 64-bit). Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012 R2 
• Web Browser: Chrome, Firefox, and IE 11 (or higher)
• Sound Card: 16-bit recording 
• Microphone: Device’s built-in or Nuance-approved microphones
• Internet Connection: for automatic product activation and online help

Customer Support – Dragon software support is available in the form of user guides, cheat-sheets and product support, or write them using the contact form.

How to Choose the Right Nuance Dragon Software

Choosing the right Dragon software is surprisingly simple and straightforward. Here is a quick and super brief round-up for various people and use cases.  

• Personal use: Nuance Dragon Home
• Enterprise or small business: Nuance Dragon Professional
• Legal Firm or Lawyer: Nuance Dragon Software Legal
• Digital nomads, writers, travelers: Nuance Dragon Anywhere

You can choose the right Dragon software based on your own or business needs. We recommend taking a closer look at the Nuance Dragon software website to understand all features and requirements before making a decision.

Dragon Software Review 2021 – Verdict

Summarizing our Dragon software review, this technology offers great benefits and upsides as well as some downsides. Accuracy has improved a lot over the last couple of years and will continue to do so even further.

However, editing remains an essential part of the workflow to ensure error-free copy or communication. Dragon software as well as its competitors are not free of flaws when it comes to understanding accents, system implementation, or certain privacy issues.

We recommend keeping such things in mind. In the end, all that matters is certainly that you know what you’re looking for and have considered your business needs and all angles before purchasing a software. 

Recommendation – At first, Dragon Home seems like the right choice but once you get to the Dragon Anywhere software, it might be a suitable option for you too. If you plan to use Dragon software for work, we recommend considering Professional straight away as it contains features not available in Home to make work-life even more productive.

Last but not least, consider the subscription-based, and perpetual software license case if you run a small, medium-sized company. Updates (paid and free) are also another important part of Dragon software. Each version provides some extra functionalities and is made for a different person.

What is the best Dragon Software 2021? Please share your experiences of using Dragon in your daily work or life in the comments below.

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