I actually did a little research on this subject back in the late 90's for
a college class. The gist of the research is this:
The fastest processor affordable.
As much memory as possible.
Since a laptop has integrated sound, you can't change it easily, but better
quality sound cards produced higher accuracy.
Most important factor.....A QUALITY mic. In this case, a unidirectional,
noise cancelling unit would be best. I'm guessing there will be a fair
amount of background noise. This single factor may make or break the deal.
I'm not sure where the Blackberry device comes in. Most of the V/R mfgs
have their own hand recorders where you talk now, transcribe later. These
units worked but I got better results with a quality mic. Not as convenient
though.

Plantronics makes some great headsets. Be prepared to spend some
money....50-75 US dollars for a really good and comfortable unit. I use
their DSP-100 monaural USB unit which bypasses the sound card (kinda).

Last but not least....spend as much time as possible "training" the
software. 3-4 hours is minimum for good out of the box accuracy.

Haven't spent much time lately keeping up with the latest and greatest, but
back then both Dragon and IBM (ViaVoice) were pretty good.

Hope this helps.
Michael


At 04:03 AM 2/26/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>My client wants to dictate and transmit email messages while travelling in
>the DC metro area.
>Research suggests that "Dragon naturally Speaking" may be the appropriate
>software, combined with a fast laptop and a Blackberry or similar device.
>I'd appreciate any input on this as my experience with this technology is
>very limited, and the client is computer challenged.
>
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