Home Forums Philips SpeechMike Premium LFH 3500 Raises The Bar

Until about 4 years ago, when Nuance released the PowerMic II, Philips completely dominated the speech recognition handheld programmable mouse/microphone market. Philips answered Nuance?s challenge a couple of years ago with the SpeechMike III but in our opinion, they were unable to challenge Nuance until possibly now. The new Philips Premium SpeechMike LFH 3500 introduces additional programmable buttons, large playback speaker, automatic mute (when you lay the microphone down on a flat surface), integrated pop filter, precision stainless steel laser scanned self lubricating removable trackball, improved signal-to-noise ratio, more sensitive completely redesigned extended-range jar proof microphone element, higher accuracy, polished surface (to reduce unwanted fingertip noises), motion sensor, ergonomically improved and most importantly? SIGNIFICANTLY IMPROVED noise filtering. This is the 1st handheld microphone that can effectively be used in a crowded Emergency Room. In my opinion, the greatest problem with other handheld microphones is noise filtering. Fortunately, Philips seems to have found a solution. If you would like to know more about the history of handheld microphones or you would like to see our detailed review, which includes a head-to-head comparison against other popular handheld microphones, click KnowBrainer Handheld Microphone Face-Off

I had to stop using SpeechMike 5276 because of poor quality voice recognition. Another problem is that the cable of Phillips nicks at the junction to the handheld. After using two Phillips SpeechMike's my impression is that their voice recognition fidelity is poorer than something reasonable priced like Andrea 181. If SpeechMike III can be returnable, I may try it for one more time but otherwise I am going to stick to Andrea 181. When you are using microphones on 6 terminals, the cost builds up.

After looking at Microphone Face off, I did try Seinheiser M3 in the past, with only marginal, if at all improvement in voice recognition accuracy compared to Andrea 181.

Everything we sell from a USB soundcard to a full copy of Dragon Medical comes with a 30 day customer satisfaction money back guarantee as we know all Speech Recognition related hardware and software is cutting edge technology and doesn?t work for all end users. In fact we have hospitals and colleges call on occasion asking for several microphones to test head to head to see which one works best for their purposes.

Hi everyone,

Has anyone purchased from Tom Hamilton? If so please PM me. I'm looking for a recommendation.

Thanks. Gene

Gene,
I've purchased 3 microphones from KnowBrainer over the years and have always had good service and support.
Dave

I'd second Dave's recommendation, good honest reviews and fair price for the products. I have also bought Dragon Medical updates from KnowBrainer. I once emailed salesATknowbrainer.com with a question on a Saturday afternoon, and received a response 30 minutes later from Lunis Orcutt, the CEO. Very much the same style of customer service we (usually) get from AC & Updox. And the KnowBrainer service reps answer questions promptly on their hosted forum.

Thanks Dave and John,

We are almost ready to make the jump to Dragon Medical, to have the luxury of being able to dictate right into AC on a relatively fast PC using Win7. What a novel idea!

Thanks again. Gene

Gene,

I have a MIC ll from nuance, and although it was quite pricey, one feature I love is the little red light that turns on when in dictation mode. I rest it on my desk surface, and use the + button on the far right of my keyboard to turn the dictaphone on and off. The little red light has saved my bacon more often than not reminding me to turn off dictation mode or else sometimes you will get unwarranted voice commands that are hard to figure out, if you talk without realizing the dictation mode is on.

Dave and John,

Thank you both for the positive feedback. In regards to the Dictaphone PowerMic II Handheld Microphone it is the most commonly purchased microphone by our customers with Dragon Medical. It?s USB, it was designed to be used with Medical, the buttons are easy to program and it is accurate. On the down side noise cancellation could be better and my least favorite thing about this mic is the warranty which is 90 DAYS. We have never gotten a Defective PowerMic return but for a mic in this price range 90 days really is UNACCEPTABLE.

Tom,

Not trying to take away your business, but the feature of the red light is great, so Gene, listen to Tom about price and warranties as I don't want to lead you wrong, it is definitely expensive (the power mic ll). I did not know this about the warranty--uggh

Jimmie,

Of course not, the PowerMic part of my post wasn?t directed at you. It was just to the general membership. The PowerMic is a great mic and one of our best sellers. It?s just part of my job to make sure to point out the negatives as well as the positives on all hardware whether it?s microphones,digital recorders or soundcards. The 90 day warranty is shameful but you can take some comfort in the fact of a very low defect rate.

What about Bluetooth mics? Are they even worth looking into?

Over the years we have tested bluetooth microphones from Sennheiser, Jabra, Plantronics, VXI and a host of other companies. We have to date not found a Bluetooth mic that we are completely happy with. The booms are too short on most or pairing issues occur or noise cancellation is unacceptable. Accuracy could be better.


We do carry the VXI BlueParrott Xpressway http://www.knowbrainer.com/NewStore/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=442&idcategory=16 because we found it to be the best pick of the bunch and so many of our physician clients demanded that one be on the website. As you can see from the picture this is by no means a low profile cute bluetooth mic but the longer boom is what makes it a better performer.


We also carry the Plantronics Savi 440 http://www.knowbrainer.com/NewStore/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=406&idcategory=16 but this mic is not a true Bluetooth microphone, it?s actually 6.9 GHz. It has a cradle for charging that can be left behind. Plug your DECT 6 USB soundcard into a tablet or laptop and go to patient rooms with no wire or cradle. The mic also has an option for a hot swappable battery. The downside is noise cancellation, it?s not very good so either the patient rooms or other evvironment needs to be quiet. A lot of Docs have come to us for these but it?s still not perfect.


Lastly we have been Beta testing a wireless mic that will soon be offered from Andrea electronics called the Andrea WNC-1500 Wireless Headset http://www.knowbrainer.com/NewStore/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=452&idcategory=16 . This is again not truly bluetooth but runs off a 2.4 GHZ Wireless USB Soundcard. We found this mic to have very good accuracy, noise cancellation, connectivity and a very low price. The downside is the mic has two speakers and may be a bit large for patient rooms producing the DORK look that doctors don?t want. We have suggested that they go from two speakers to one and cut off any bulk possible before going into full production.

Thank you Tom.