I've been using Windows Vista as my primary OS lately.  Between express upgrades and new machines, I've got it on all of my machines except my work machine.  Through some articles recently, I was made aware of the fact that the speech recognition is vastly superior to previous versions.  In addition, have the Sony Vaio UX micro PC has given me the chance to try out the handwriting recognition features.

In theory, both of these should be faster than typing and especially thumb typing on the UX.  Are they, though?  And can they actually work in the situations where one would need or want to use them?  I will answer these questions from my point of viewing using both a Sony Vaio UX280P as well as a Dell XPS M1210.

For handwriting recognition, there are two ways to go about it.  The first is the obvious way: use the Tablet PC Input Panel. It brings up a nice yellow writing area that expands as you write. You can use script or block writing. As you write text is instantly recognized.You can click on individual words to correct them. The input gets "chunky", though, as the processor is being tasked with reading your writing. Although it works well, I've found it to be as much on exercise in writing single line proper script as anything.The recognizer starts when the pen is lifted so keeping the pen down helps performance. Corrections are easy but I don't know if it actually gets better as I correct it more and more.

Handwriting recognition can be used anywhere you can write in a stable way. Bumps and vibrations will (and do) make it very difficult to use. Since it also requires (apparently) a good bit of performance, you can't use it by well with big CPU tasks running in the background, especially on a single core system like current UMPC systems.

The other way to use handwriting recognition is with Windows Journal. It can convert a whole page of writing all at once. This means you don't have to worry about the input while you write. However, it can be quite annoying since you can only do a page at a time and not a whole document. I found that with Journal I would have been better off thumb typing.

Voice recognition, on the other hand, does work really well and does learn from the mistakes it makes. However, there are some serious issues with using it. First, you must be in a quiet location. It will not work with the TV on or with people talking nearby. This is often more challenging than you might think at first. This is one of the main reasons I have not been able to use it much just yet. The next problem is that everyone around you can hear what you are dictating to the computer. Not only that, but if it is quiet, for may want to keep it that way or maybe it's quiet because others are asleep.

You also won't be able to listen to your iPod while dictating, among other things. So there may be even more sacrifices than you are willing to take to use the dictation feature. That said, with certain well written apps, such as navigation software, you might be able to use the control features while in the car. These well first, though, because it could also lead is some very dangerous situations.

In the end, both input methods do here their place. Speech is faster and better overall, but funding a place to use it may be difficult. Handwriting works and may be faster than thumb typing but can feel slow, can be frustrating when the ink isn't tracking well, and can be quite tiring.

A good USB or Bluetooth keyboard may end up being the "write" solution for you, but give the alternates a try. After all, they are free in Windows Vista. :)

Posted by Shane on April 10, 2007 9:07 AM | Permalink