Review of the New Philips SpeechMikes

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mmarkoe Posted: Fri, Oct 22 2010 5:50 PM

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The venerable Philips SpeechMike series is updated. We received a supply of the new Philips SpeechMike Exec Pro 3205 and Philips SpeechMike Classic 3215. The 3205 is the Pro model with programmable buttons as well as the trackball. The 3215 is called the Classic and has a slide switch for those familiar with the old Dictaphones. The new models are lighter than the previous models. It is also claimed to be more ergonomic although I did not notice much of a difference having used the 3205 all day today.

Using Dragon 11 Professional I have been dictating with different noise levels. What I have noticed is when it is quiet I can actually keep the microphone five or 6 inches from my mouth resting against my chest. When it has gotten noisier, I moved the microphone element closer to my mouth and accuracy does not seem to suffer with typical office noise levels.

I briefly tested the SpeechMike 3205 with WSR, Windows Speech Recognition. It worked best with a very low volume level, 6.

The 3205 and 3215 come with the new SpeechExec ProDictate 6 software. It comes with and requires a USB software license key to install. We did not put this through its paces for believe it will work as easily as previous models for programming the buttons.

--
Marty Markoe, eMicrophones, Inc.
http://www.emicrophones.com
Microsoft MVP

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KnowBrainer replied on Sun, Oct 24 2010 7:21 PM

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Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE For the most part, we saw no reason to review these 2 new Philips SpeechMike's because we already covered the basics in our Philips SpeechMike Air Review from January of 2009. These 2 new microphones are essentially just wired versions of the SpeechMike Air (wireless version). However, we feel compelled to make a few points that may not be obvious.

1. Although this microphone features the same higher accuracy as the SpeechMike Air, it is also priced about $100 higher than the Philips SpeechMike Classic USB microphone which is slated to be retired this year.

2. It includes the SpeechExec software which you need to install in order to program the buttons but unfortunately the software requires one of those miserable USB dongles which are not popular with many end users. Fortunately, our contacts at Philips have informed us that they are planning on discontinuing the dongle requirement sometime early next year and although the SpeechExec software is impressive (because it's also the software that's included with the Philips 9600 digital recorder) from a purely speech recognition point of view, it’s overkill.

3. The only other feature we dislike about the new LFH-3205 and LFH-3215 microphones is that Philips didn't choose to include a cradle which would've allowed the end-user to optionally use this unit as a desktop microphone; giving them the option of not having to hold the microphone at all. In our opinion, this is a bit of a showstopper because once you become spoiled by the efficiency of a desktop microphone, it's hard to go back to wearing a headset or being forced to hold a handheld microphone full-time.

In our opinion, we believe that end users would be better served by one of the following 2 options:

1. Saving about $200 by purchasing the Grundig Digta SonicMic II USB microphone which we found to be equivalent to the new SpeechMike LFH-3200 series but available at $100 less and includes the ability to double as a desktop microphone with an 18 inch range.

2. Spending an additional $100 on the Philips SpeechMike Air wireless handheld USB microphone which doubles as a desktop microphone and can optionally accept an inexpensive professional noise canceling microphone such as the KnowBrainer Hands-free for use in noisy environments without requiring the necessity of rerunning the Audio Setup Wizard.

We've been using desktop microphones for the past year and we’re starting to see a trend towards microphones that don't require the end-user to hold or wear microphones. Another advantage of the Digta SonicMic II is that you can program 3 functions under each button (click, double-click and long click). If anyone's interested, in additional information, you might want to check out our Digta SonicMic II vs Philips SpeechMike review because even though Dragon Medical 11 is still several months away, it will all but require a high-end microphone.

Note: We introduced the Philips SpeechMike LFH-3205 and SpeechMike LFH-3215 USB microphones (with pricing) to our website several weeks ago and have been working with the LFH-3215 model for the past 3 weeks. As with every microphone we sell on our website, the new Philips 3200 series will include a KnowBrainer neoprene carrying case and our user guide which includes pictorial step-by-step button programming instructions along with Live Online Support and Virtual Onsite Support with TeamViewer Professional (industry-standard) which is now included with all of our speech recognition peripherals.