I like this hardware/software program and believe it will improve with use.

The first problem I encountered is that the headphone has two plugs at the end of the wire. An Orange colored plug and a red one. After much trial and error I found that the orange and red plugs do not work when plugged into their respective orange and red sockets in the back of the computer.

I decided that based on reading the material with ScanSoft Dragon 8 that my computer must require the battery that is identified in the instructions which must be purchased separately. Being stubborn and having grown up in the computer age from its beginning, I decided to plug the orange plug into the green colored socket in the back of the computer, and the red plug into the orange socket. Works great now!! This may not be the same problem for everyone - I have a new Sony VAIO Computer and maybe the sockets are just colored differently on this computer.

My second major problem was getting the program to understand me the same every time. We go along fine, and then suddenly it no longer understands what I am saying.

Another problem in my opinion is registration - I registered the program. It apparently did not take. After a reminder that I only had so long to properly register the program, I searched and finally found registration and reregistered the program. Today I received a third notice that I must register the program. The best I can figure is that I did not give enough optional information about my preferences (I gave virtually none) and I did not opt into receiving other solicitations. I would like for this please register notice to go away.

Be ready to devote some time to the learning curve on this program. This virtually requires learning a new language.

I am a proficient typist and learning to think with my brain and mouth instead of my brain and fingers while at the computer is difficult for me.

Despite the problems, I am glad I purchased the program and I'm looking forward to a new adventure.

Wish I had known this software only does voice and does not support a digital voice recorder. I would have purchased the preferred edition.

Using version 7 has been very disappointing, though there is a lot of potential. It makes a lot of stupid mistakes, writing things that make no grammatical sense. Surely it would not be difficult to include simple grammatical rules so it can eliminate certain possibilities and have a better chance of correct interpretation. I have to make so many corrections, and the "select" function is so unreliable for me that using Dragon is usually much slower than typing.

Tech support is nonexistent.

Now they want us to pay money for version 8. After spending money on the poor quality, buggy product (v7), I'm not sure that I trust this company.

Tips: The included headset was not very good. I got better results using my own (cheap) headset, and would probably do better buying a good one.

I can get better results by speaking very clearly and slowly (as if talking to an imbecile) but I very quickly strain my voice. They say to speak normally and clearly without straining, but this just doesn't work - so be careful. Look on the Internet for a guide to avoiding voice strain.

Unfortunately there are no serious alternatives that the moment, so for me it's a choice between voice strain and sore fingers and wrists.

Note: I am using the Australian edition. The US edition may be better (although the Australian edition should be less of a challenge, as there is much less variation in Australian accents than in American accents). I speak very clearly, and when I'm using this program I try to speak like a newsreader.

Good luck!

When paying as much as I did for this product, I would have expected a little better. Training the program turned into a constant battle for me, and I never could get it to work well enough to be faster than typing. Then I began having unexplained system problems. Internet Explorer began working poorly, and I became unable to download any updates for WindowsXP. I finally noticed my firewall alert going off, and checked my security log. There were several entries from the manufacturer of this program, some of which had accessed and changed executable programs in my system. (My firewall includes a back trace, so I can tell where any attack originates from.) After I restored my system to a point before NaturallySpeaking 8 was installed, my system problems have vanished. I can't believe ScanSoft would put out a program like this, and I will avoid them in the future.

Dragon Naturally Speaking 8 is simply amazing. The training does not take a long time, and when you correct something, the program gets more acurate! As a 10-year-old kid, it has saved me a great amount of typing and time, and I would really recomend this program to anyone. I use it mostly with Microsoft Word, and now do almost all of my schoolwork that requires typing with NatSpeak. I now get less headaches from being on the computer. ScanSoft's Dragon Naturally Speaking 8 is truely a great program.