PHILIPS LFH3500 SpeechMike Premium USB Dictation Microphone Precision Microphone Push Button Control

Was hesitant that it wouldn't work like my Nuance mic, but at least had overnight delivery. Works just as well, very happy with my purchase

I previously purchased the Grundig Digta SonicMic - the direct competitor to the Philips SpeechMike. The Grundig SonicMic, was great, high quality German construction. It worked well. But I eventually decide to give this Philips SpeechMike a try. I'm glad I did.It seems built specifically for voice to text dictation, the ergonomics are great, it feels good in the hands, and the buttons and trackball are pretty responsiveThe only drawback, and this does irritate me, is the Philips control program that you need to install in order to really effectively use the microphone. It is slightly glitchy, but only slightly on my Windows 10 core i7 machine. It also keeps trying to update itself for the Internet, and try as hard as I can I cannot disable that feature. That irritates me.But the microphone itself is rocksolid, I haven't decided if I like it better than the Grundig Digta SonicMic, but I will say the Philips SpeechMike LFH-3500 is a very high quality and well-made microphone. If your budget permits it, then it is probably the best handheld that you'll find. If budget is an issue they go for the Grundig, because it seems to perform almost as well as the Philips, but at a lower price-point.if you are purchasing this to use with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, or the built-in Windows speech to text feature, it will work very well.At the end of the day, dictation is mostly about your elocution, and voice delivery. The hardware is just what gives it that extra edge, in terms of accuracy. If you have not trained yourself to be a precise in your dictation then the hardware won't help you very much. But if you can get the skill of dictation itself down, reliably, then hardware like this can definitely help you get an extra edge.

Worked fine until I did the recommended software upgrade that seemed to destroy the mic. Phillips won't even respond to e-mails to remedy the problem. The mic may be ok, but the customer support is horrible.

I recieved the mike in excellent conditions.It has worked perfectly and I haven’t had any problems with it.

As far as speech recognition, this is the best SpeechMike and amongst the best microphones that I have used ever. Excellent quality with almost 99% accuracy. And the trackball function is fairly decent. It is very ergonomic and comfortable to use. Used with Stanley Hardware 6-Inch Lifespan Heavy Strap Hinge, Zinc Plated #141500700, it becomes a table microphone. Motion sensing mute function is very useful.Over the years, I have used 3 previous versions of SpeechMike microphones, and after using them for a year or two, I had to discard them because the cable connection with microphone frayed where it connects with the microphone. Finally, they have made the USB cable replaceable, now it plugs into the microphone. The firmware is also upgradable now. In theory, there is Mac software too.This microphone has several programmable buttons - supposedly. But the Philips Device Control software has gotten much worse. It was always buggy, but the the version available as of now is really the worst. After using the software for a while, the buttons stop working. So you have to exit the Device Control Center software and start it all over again. Very annoying and just defeats the purpose of creating the buttons that can be customized.The other two competitors to SpeechMike for handheld voice recognition, as of now, are Dictaphone PowerMic II Handheld USB Dictation Microphone (Without Scanner) and Grundig Digta SonicMic 2. PowerMic II needs no software to install, works exclusively with Dragon Medical and you cannot use it with any other version of Dragon Naturally Speaking or any other software, unlike SpeechMike, which can theoretically be programmed to work with any software. The speech recognition accuracy of Grundig is not as good as the other two, but it is the least expensive. Both these have a ThinkPad like trackpoint rather than a trackball.So, if you are looking for speech recognition accuracy, then so far, I have not found anything to beat SpeechMike. But Philips really needs to improve the glitchy software.

Use this daily at work for dictation of medical notes. Works well with Dragon or Fluency. Quality is good, but needs a sheath of some sort to protect it as rolling around on mobile computer lends to lots of potential damage and they are not very resilient products! The ones at work are so sad and broken that I have to buy my own to bring for shifts. Hope this one lasts as the price is steep! Buying used was helpful, product worked well despite not being new.

Phenomenal product. Used with Dragon Medical Practice Edition 2, nearly 100% accurate voice recognition (like 99.95%). I use this at home, and the Nuance PowerMic II at work. The buttons on the Philips are much nicer to press; they are firm and provide good feedback when pressed, whereas the PowerMic buttons are kind of squishy. The buttons can easily be assigned to control the Dragon software, but you have to quit the Philips control center and restart it before the saved changes will take effect. I highly also highly recommend the DMPE 2 software over previous versions of Dragon or competitors such as Talktech. Never have I had such amazingly accurate speech recognition.

Expensive, but worth every penny. I switched to a handheld mic for use with my Dragon Medical, and these work great. The built-in mouse control on the mic is genius, as it means I don't have to keep putting it down and picking it up, if I make a correction in another section.I cannot yet comment on the longevity, but having used other Philips products going back decades, I expect it to last a long time.