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Product Review
[Voice Recognition and eMachines M5310] [Canon 6.3MP EOS Rebel Digital Camera] [Voice Over IP] [HP Pavillion ZD7000] [Radio Shack 6-in-1 Remote] [Palm Zire 71] [Perfect Notebook Part 2] [Perfect Notebook] [Do LCD's make a difference?] [Digital Camera Binoculars] [Maxtor Backup] [Apple iBook Part 2] [Apple iBook Part 1] [Sony Vaio Laptop] [Panasonic’s KX-TG4000B 4 Line, Multi-Cordless Handset] [Brother MFC-9700] [E-Machines] [Dual Monitors] [Sony Clie PDA] [IDE Raid Controllers] [Olympus C700 Digital Camera]
Voice Recognition and eMachines M5310
A Final Look at the
eMachines M5310
One of our most popular reviews was
regarding the eMachines M5310 notebook. At the time the question
lingering in the back of our minds was regarding the longevity
of the unit and quality of support from eMachines technical
support. It seems that both fall short. About 6 months ago Sue’s
eMachine Laptop started shutting down for no apparent reason. I
immediately attributed the problem to some sort of automatic
system update from Microsoft because the problem seemed to go
away once I restored some of the system drivers. After some time
the problem returned and worsened. In February I had to replace
the unit as it would not stay running. The problem became so
severe that I was not able to restore the system with the
restore disks. After some research and some testing, I came to
the conclusion that the system was overheating due to poor CPU
cooling. This was confirmed via eMachine’s tech support. What I
found to be completely unacceptable was the fact that they do
not offer a CPU fan replacement at this point. If your fan fails
or becomes clogged, you are basically out of luck unless you are
willing to send it to them for repair, but seeing as they do not
have any replacement fans, I question how they expect to really
“fix” the problem.
There is some good news for those
that are having the same problem with this model. The fan uses
some very tiny copper fins to help dissipate the heat from the
CPU. If the airflow through these fins becomes at all
obstructed, the unit will not run properly. Even just a little
bit of dust causes a problem. I was able to disassemble the
system and clean the fan assembly myself which has corrected the
problem to date. I will be posting detailed directions on our
web site as a follow up.
At this point, primarily due to
their lack of support, I would steer away from any eMachine
notebook product. I still believe that their desktop PC’s offer
a good value, but there is usually little need for support on a
desktop computer. Laptops require specialized parts and support,
before you buy, make sure that the company can stand behind the
product, or be prepared to handle your own support and repairs.
Voice Recognition That Works?
I recently
had the opportunity to work with the newest version of Dragon
Naturally Speaking Voice Recognition Software. A client of mine
wanted to use Voice Recognition as a means of dictating his
notes from the depositions he was reading. My initial advice to
him was that Voice Recognition may not have improved enough to
be a practical tool for him.
Several years ago I had the
opportunity to work with various different Voice Recognition
packages. I had tried IBM Via Voice, Dragon Naturally Speaking,
as well as others. I basically found them to be difficult and
tedious to train as well as inaccurate no matter how much
training was done. Some of my clients had great success with the
Dragon Naturally Speaking because of its industry specific
vocabulary database. Because I could type relatively fast and
accurately I found Voice Recognition impractical for my use.
Therefore this was the basis of my opinion to my client.
I’m quite pleased to say that I
had to change my opinion. Not only was training a breeze, but
with minimal effort, the software was very accurate. With only
about 30 minutes of training and practice he was able to dictate
his notes fairly accurately into Microsoft word. Not bad for an
$89.00 investment!
On the heels of seeing the
success of the Dragon Voice Recognition software, I decided to
give the bungled Voice Recognition Software from Microsoft Word
2003 a shot. I’m happy to say that I am equally impressed. My
only issue with the Microsoft bundled software is that I could
not find any documentation on how to use it. Fortunately the
command structure is similar enough to Dragon that I was able to
find my way around. One major difference is the method to which
you correct the software’s accuracy and the addition of new
words and phrases. Once I figured out that I can take the
document I just dictated and tell the software to learn from it,
it made it much more accurate.
Perhaps the biggest consideration
when looking at using any Voice Recognition Software is the
hardware that you’ll be using to capture your speech. Generally
speaking laptops don’t have great sound cards and my client was
planning to use his laptop as his primary Voice Recognition
device. So I recommended that he purchase a USB Voice
Recognition headset. There are several on the market, and after
reading some reviews, I recommended the Plantronics headset
available at Circuit City and other computer stores. The cost
was about $50.00. Because it is USB, it takes the place of the
existing sound card and eliminates the disparity between good
sound cards and bad soundcards. It worked very well.
Seeing as I’m using my desktop
for my Voice Recognition, and it has a pretty good sound card, I
opted to get a reasonable quality headset with a noise canceling
microphone. These are available basically anywhere in prices
ranging from $10.00 to $100.00 depending on the brand. I
purchased a basic headset at Staples for about $12.00
manufactured by Computer Associates. I had purchased this
headset primarily for voice chatting over the computer but found
the quality of the microphone to be very good.
So what is the bottom line? If
you are inclined to give Voice Recognition a try, now is the
time to do so. With a minimal investment of money and time you
can be dictating your documents and emails in no time. The one
thing that you need to remember is to take your time and be
patient. The first few documents will be a little troublesome
but the process will become more familiar thereby making the
tool more useful. Currently, I do not have a recommendation for
one product over another but I hope to take a look at several
different packages in the near future. I’ll be sure to let you
know what I find out.
Happy dictating! |
