Thank you for posting this! I am surprised there are still no formal reviews of DP 16. There are many of us using DP 15 daily. You are correct that your comparison is "not perfect" due to the difference in microphones. I use the Logitech headset with DP 15. I get better results with it than I do with my Philips Speech Mic, so the better performance may be secondary to using the Logitech mic. It wojuld be interesting to repeat this test with the mics reversed. If DP 15 then outperforms DP 16, we will know it was the mic. If DP 16 still outperforms DP 15, then we will know it is the software. Thanks again.

Thank you for doing this. As already stated, we do not know if this is a comparison of the microphones and/or the software versions. If you could keep the conditions exactly the same it would be great. Another aspect is whether the robustness has improved e.g. putting to sleep, turning back on, answering an email, doing a websearch, etc., then coming back to Dragon - I am a mod for the Translators who Use Speech Recognition group and most people have been put off upgrading due to the prices, but the main criticisms of DP15 I read tend to be about it crashing quite readily when you are doing a day's work and other tasks on the computer, and there is the claim that DP16 is more robust, so a test of that would be great. I would love to do that myself, but cannot justify the cost until I know that info so, like others I think, we are in a bit of a catch-22 situation.

(btw thank-you for the side by side comparison)

Great comparison. Yes, the price is unreal. ;) Thanks!

Interesting comparison. Would it be possible for you to upload a comparison of the two using the same audio recording for transcription? That might get us closer to an apples/apples comparison between the two

Thank you so much for this. In my experience, Dragon 15 was decent, but I noticed a drop in accuracy when I bumped up the 15.63 patch. Nice to see that v16 is much more accurate.

Good comparison. May have been helpful to do the same test with the microphones switched.

Thank you for this. Poeple have mentioned the different microphones, but of course v15 you had a dedicated Nuance Mic and v16 was a 3rd party Logitech Mic. I think that helps the case for v16. On the other hand, you have a better processor for the v16. But I have the better, newer processor setup on my computer, and still get several mistakes in v15, so I don't believe it is just the processor. This helped me a lot, thank you!

Thanks so much. This is awesome.

Thanks for this!

Thank you so much!!!

Hi @Lawrence. Here's a possible way to test the two. Since you have the audio recording of this KZfaq Video, use it as input. Have the sound come out of a decent speaker and use it to "dictate" to the mic. By making sure that the mic positioning is identical, you would only need to move the USB cable from one machine to the other. That would get you pretty close to having the same setup, without installing the software twice on the same machine. Plus, you reduce the differences introduced by dictating the same content twice.

Thanks for the comparison. I use the French version of Dragon 15, and the worse issue (and there are many of them) is the correction box, which is terrible, as the alternatives offered are largely random. Is it the same for the English version, and has there been any improvement with Dragon 16? Thanks for your help, Alex

Hello Lawrence. Any chance of changing the microphones to see if the dragon 16 still outperforms. Thanks for your efforts on this. Mike

Thanks for this great video. I used Dragon in the early days, and accuracy has undoubtedly improved. I am not sure whether it is any longer adding value as we have so many free voice recognition systems nowadays, unless you are a lawyer or medical professional. With AI writing text so much more efficiently, it is also not necessarily a productivity booster any longer. I still love the technology and it served me well. I am just not sure if I would upgrade from my home edition.

Hi! Thanks a lot for your contribution! Just wanted to say that you oversaw another mistake of dragon 15 on the left: "incentivised" In fact, because of you I bought Version 16 (was using 15 before, and before that 13)

Thanks for doing this review. Like a lot of people I am on the fence about upgrading to DP16. I decided to run a test using your text on my DP15 Personal Professional installation, running on Windows 10. Granted I dictate into Gmail or Word more often than not, however for this exercise I used the DragonPad. I am using a Jabra Evolve 65 headset. Surprisingly I had 3 errors only, a 99% accuracy rate. To be honest I was hoping it would not be as good a result, as it would help me to justify an upgrade! Unfortunately this is not the case, as DP15 is not underperforming to the level I was expecting would be the case. It feels Like when I use it in every day life I have significantly more errors, so it may in fact be a result of how I am dictating text on the fly, rather than a focused test such as what I have just done. And yes, I wrote this comment with DP15 and have not had a single error....I'm not sure if I should be happy about that or not ;)

I'm curious, do you find that Version 16 has less of the "filler" words like "to" from your breathing? I've been using Dragon almost as long as you have, certainly I've known about it since then as well. I transcribe for a living using voice typing and 15 and below add in "to" a LOT and even adjusting the audio has not eliminated that. All in all, thank you for this! Also, how does it do with contractions (we're v. were; your, you're, their, they're, there)? These are the biggies that could push me over the edge to purchase. I think $300 for an upgrade price is too high, unless it really knocks this type of stuff out of the park. Appreciate any response!

Lawrence, in DP16 Really better than 15? I’m a user of fifteen since it’s introducing for content writing in excess of 4000 WPD. Is 16 worth the investment?

Why not switch microphones and repeat? This might answer the question of whether it was the microphone?

Thanks, I'm getting back into Nuance and Knowbrainer. But shouldn't the title be Dragon NaturallySpeaking Pro 15 vs 16 Side-by-Side Comparison rather than Dragon NaturallySpeaking Pro 16 vs 15 Side-by-Side Comparison , in order to reflect the order of the monitors in the actual video? I know you mentioned it in the video, but sometimes we restart videos in the middle and could use that extra clue.

Additionally, I've noticed that while Dragon 16 has improved writing within online platforms like Twitter dialog boxes, it has limited the ability to highlight incorrect areas and immediately correct them using the correction dialog box. Instead, it seems that everything needs to be redone unless one writes within a separate "DICTATION BOX" within Dragon. This introduces extra steps and makes the correction process less efficient. Is there a way to address this and streamline the correction process for users who prefer not to use the separate dictation box?

Can you create brackets and navigate between [] and [] with a hot key or a command?

One of the changes that have affected my user experience is the placement of the Dragon microphone icon in the Windows taskbar. In the past, I could conveniently access this icon separately within the lower right notification center. However, in Version 16, it seems to only appear under the "hidden icon area" upward arrow. This change has introduced extra steps to access the additional functionality that was previously available quickly from the notification center. Alternatively, there is the option of using the overlay at the top of the screen, but this occupies space at the top of browser page tabs, causing confusion when clicking. Is there any way to provide users with more flexibility in accessing the microphone icon?

Try that again using an A/B switch capable of splitting the signal from the same microphone. I got one such for under €30. This is not a valid comparison given the huge variability with microphones. You could also record and use the transcription function in each.

I have found with V15 that a USB microphone or adapter works better than a microphone that plugs into 3.5mm ports.

Did you create a brand new user for Dragon 16 or did you import your Dragon 15 user?

Thank You!

Great comparison! But do we really still need to pay $600 to upgrade?

Can I use this during zoom meeting so all of the words that my client will say will be automatically transcribe to text?

Seems like a long delay, it is usually this slow in transcribing?

Im using a olympus ds7000 and have over 2000Recordings with each 3hours of spoken data. Dragon 16 cost 940,- while 15 is very cheap with 160,- What would you recommend, or would you say that version 16 is worth the 5times amount of money? br from germany

The price is $699 for the standalone version and $349 for the upgrade version.

Honestly, if dragon is going to upgrade again, can they make it so that when it listens to your voice, can it listen to how you actually speak to automatically put in the periods and commas? That is what really annoys me

It's funny that Dragon 16 takes seemingly longer to cogitate and then puts everything down all at once.

You really used different PCs, mics and also OS for this "comparison"?

I turned on my phone keyboard transcription. And it had a single error in the entire thing. I think this $700 software can go to hell. lol

Good video, BUT... This would be a better (more accurate) comparison IF... both were dictated using the identical computers and the identical microphones. How do we know what errors were caused by the slower processor or by the different microphones. Even the positioning of the microphones could have yielded different results. I'm not saying this isn't a good comparison - it's just that some of the mistakes incurred could have been caused by other factors. Yesterday, I upgraded to DP 16 - After SEVEN YEARS - I'm surprised there have not been more improvements. AND, I'm finding some significant glitches in DP 16. Example: on my multi-monitor setup (2x 4096x2160 150% and 1x 1920x1080 100%) the scripting "SetMousePosition" command no longer works properly with monitor screen scaling set to a value greater than 100%. DPI 15.x did not have this problem.

wish it didnt cost $600

This looks totally useless because you tested on totally different PCs: different OS, different CPU, even the mics differed