From PC Magazine / June 14, 2000, By Greg Alwang

Full Review

With each new release of L&H Voice Xpress Professional, Lernout & Hauspie improves voice recognition accuracy and expands natural language support. And L&H Voice Xpress Professional Version 5 ($149.99 list) doesn't disappoint. Focusing on usability, Version 5 adds new features, so novices and pros can use voice recognition to accomplish much more than just straight dictation.

As with Version 4.0, speaker enrollment takes about 10 minutes. L&H bundles a comfortable Plantronics SR-1 headset, and the streamlined microphone tuning takes just a few seconds each time you load Voice Xpress. Our initial accuracy hovered just over 96 percent, peaking at 98 percent and dropping to 95 percent on one of our difficult test documents--still very respectable results right out of the box. (Accuracy improves over time.)

A key language model enhancement is the new Nothing But Speech feature, which eliminates unwanted utterances such as "ah" and "uhm." Like Dragon Systems' (acquired by L&H last week) NaturallySpeaking, you can import existing documents to the Accuracy Builder, but Voice Xpress also lets you import sent e-mail messages to improve accuracy for informal e-mails as well as business documents.

Like IBM's ViaVoice Pro Millennium Edition, Voice Xpress lets you control all aspects of your PC by voice--including the Microsoft Windows desktop, menus in any Windows application, browsers, and e-mail clients. Natural language command support from L&H's Web-centric Now You're Talking and Voice Xpress Personal Finance products has been integrated into Version 5. The command support can be daunting, so L&H has included a context-sensitive Sample Command window that shows you the commands available at any given time.

Novice users will appreciate Voice Xpress Café, which offers a low-key learning environment, complete with a talking guide who walks you through examples and hands-on exercises. Café is an excellent way to refine your method of controlling your PC by voice.

The new, human-sounding RealSpeak text-to-speech option sounds far better and is easier to understand than a synthesized "computer" voice. You can use it to read back dictated or highlighted text in any document or Web page.

With L&H Voice Xpress Professional 5, the company has taken a feature-rich product and made it easier to use. Both experienced speech recognition users and new users should give this product a try.

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