If you think speech recognition might be the way for you to interact with your computer, there really is only one choice of product to try. That isn't an unequivocal recommendation but a statement of fact. Dragon Naturally Speaking is the only commercially available speech recognition software, so if its new release, version 9, isn't any good, the whole technology takes a hit.

The big new improvement, according to Dragon Naturally Speaking's manufacturer, Nuance (formerly ScanSoft), is that you don't have to train it. However, in the previous version training only took around 20 minutes, so this is hardly a big innovation when you consider how long you're likely to spend using the software.

Other improvements in the new program are in the algorithms used to detect what you've said. Nuance claims Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 is 99 percent accurate, so should only mistake one word in 100. Having used the software for nearly a month now, that seems overly optimistic.

The wireless headset supplied in the Preferred Wireless edition, a CS60 DECT device from Plantronics, may be the problem, but Plantronics makes very good headsets and this is the unit Nuance has chosen to bundle. When you play back what you've said, the voice file sounds clear enough.

It's the little things that Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 doesn't recognise consistently. Version 9 would much rather type 'V.' or 'be' or 'de' than 'the', every time you say 'the'. That's even with the incorrect options being far less common in normal English.

Also it seems to dislike plurals; so, for example, it interpreted 'sounds' in the earlier paragraph as 'sound is'. It sticks extra words in too, which is hard to fathom. You're dying for a way to override its vocabulary and say 'whenever I say this, transcribe it this way'.

When you need to make corrections, you say 'select' followed by the misrecognized word or phrase, and are presented with a list of likely alternatives. What you actually said usually comes high up the list - it's a shame Nuance couldn't make that last leap to enable Dragon Naturally Speaking to understand your words in context (that's a very big ask, though).

Perhaps we're just being picky, as the software does recognise speech and for general dictation it gets most of what you say correctly transcribed. Version 9 can transcribe from digital dictation devices and PDAs, as well as working with a live microphone, making it very versatile.

The Preferred version of the software costs £150 and can control most Windows applications. If you only need Word, Outlook Express, Internet Explorer and AOL, the Standard version costs just £80. There's also Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 Preferred Mobile at £200, complete with a Philips digital recorder, and Preferred Wireless for around £180.

It may look as if we're criticising Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 rather strongly, but in fact, unless you're a touch typist, it's a much faster way of writing on your PC than using a keyboard. Our few niggles are more frustrations than major criticisms, but several of them have been in the program for more than one version. Nuance really needs to jump on them if speech recognition is finally to achieve mainstream acceptance.