Voice Xpress Professional 4

An alternative method of entering text is to use the Olympus DS-150 digital recorder, which is included with the Mobile Professional version of the software - this costs £153. The DS-150 provides up to 75 minutes' recording time - and once you've dictated your messages, you then use the bundled XpressPad Mobile software to transcribe the voice data. XpressPad Mobile is also included with Voice Xpress Professional, so if you want to use a more traditional recorder, unlike ViaVoice, you can create WAV files and transcribe them.

The £68 Advanced version of Voice Xpress is also worth a mention. This doesn't have the Professional's level of integration with Office, but it does integrate with Word and allows you to dictate directly into other Windows applications, unlike the non-Pro versions of ViaVoice Millennium Edition. And if you don't want to spend £100 on voice-recognition software but want this functionality, it's worth considering.

However, Voice Xpress Professional doesn't fare so well in terms of value for money. It's almost identical in price to NaturallySpeaking Preferred and IBM ViaVoice Pro, but can't match either of its rivals for recognition out of the box. If this is the crucial factor, ViaVoice remains our top choice.

Author: Tim Danton