Talking Desktop
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Talking Desktop Review

The Good:  The software is cheaply priced and so can serve as an entry-level answer for people looking for the best voice recognition software with few tens of dollars in the pocket. It is able to complete simple dictations so you will get good value for money.

The Bad:  The reaction time and extremely limited controls make it unfit for use by individuals seeking for quality voice recognition solution. This is unsurprising seeing the disparity in pricing.

The Verdict:  You can use this if you are a very patient home user with very little dictation work going on daily.

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What makes Talking Desktop an acceptable program?

The Talking Desktop is a program with a widened scope and so it is not just voice recognition software. it comes with different types of commands to use. It has some useful options for pulling in weather update and news from the internet much like an RSS of some sort. The problem however is that it takes too long to pull the information onto your computer. Therefore on many occasions, it will make better sense opening your sites or searching for weather updates the good old way.

The software has an avatar that interacts with you. This avatar excels in the task of responding to greetings and commands. It is intelligent enough to know when to ask if you are still close to the computer. If you are away for a while, it will wake up the system before you sit down as soon as it hears you approaching. All of these are nice perks but the avatar still mixes up commands and responds slowly like the rest of the system.

As long as you are within the basic set of commands, the software will continue to work well. However, as soon as you expand beyond the basic set of commands, it begins to struggle. It offers you a way of adding new commands to the list but there is no guarantee that this will work well

Generally, you may find it difficult to accomplish basic tasks like opening and closing of programs. The software operates virtually in a separate environment so it is difficult to use with your actual Windows Desktop.

The dictation mode of the software is just adequate as it does fairly well with general vocabulary. It doesn’t fair well however, with complicated words. Talking desktop performs better when you slow down and draw out your words. This means that it isn’t exactly useful if you want to dictate in a conversational manner. Only our top rated best voice to text software can offer you this. 

The program equally struggles with various kinds of formatting, punctuation etc.  You can quickly use it in getting your thoughts down but formatting and editing has to be done manually.

Accuracy is a big problem with this software. This explains why a one-dimensional product like the Google Voice Search is head of it in our ranking.  The software not only missies out on words it substitutes words in a bizarre manner. Imaging saying “punctuation errors” and seeing the software record “Jewishness”! You will get slightly improved results with a headset in place of your computer built in microphone but still the accuracy is well below acceptable standards.

The software is however, straight forward and easy to use.  The interface is very clean and can be easily understood in seconds. Its interface is actually cleaner than some of our best speech recognition software.

Abasoft the manufacturer offers very good support for their product so you can be assured that all questions will be properly answered.

In summary,  the software doesn’t really live up to the others in our list of best voice recognition software in 2018 but it offers you a good way to cut your teeth in the speech-to-text market without spending too  much  money. However, if you are going to really continue enjoying voice-recognition technology or take your hands-free dictation to the next level, you will have to purchase any of our top best speech to text software.

Why choose Talking Desktop as your transcription software?

  • Easy to use
  • Cheap
  • Intuitive interface
  • Offers RSS feed-like functions

System Requirements

  • Windows Vista or Windows 7
  • Compatible with wireless and array microphones
  • Speech recognition quality headset or microphone

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