I recently migrated from a Qtek 8500 to an HTC P3600 (see my other review on the P3600 http://www.epinions.com/content_312540827268) and was having a hard time transitioning from a phone with real keypad to one with an on-screen virtual pad. I was looking for a utility to augment and enhance the voice dialing features of the P3600 when I came across MS VoiceCommand. After reading up on the features I bought version 1.6 from Handango for $39.99 and installed it.

First of all, the software is surprisingly compact (mere 5MB for download) and it works well beyond my expectation. What I ended up getting was a lot more robust than simple voice dialing. That was pleasant surprise number 1. It was easy to install and virtually configuration free.

Voice Recognition:
With all voice recognition software, the first and foremost question is how well it recognizes natural speech and how much “training” it requires to make it reasonably adapt at picking any user’s unique accent. Here is the second pleasant surprise: the application requires no training what-so-ever.

It was able to pick up all the stock voice commands out of the box. I did not have to program voice tags or learn to speak in certain ways to activate VoiceCommand and its features. There is no need to slow down one’s speech excessively to be recognized by the application. It is exceptionally accurate at recognizing stock commands (e.g. What is my battery status, what is my next appointment, play music, etc.)

When it comes to recognizing names, the application is surprisingly adapt as well (Surprise Number 3). VoiceCommand usually has no problem parsing commands such as “Call Frank Meese at home”, finding the right record from Contacts, and dialing the number recorded under “Home”. VoiceCommand can be configured to seek confirmation before dialing a number after repeating the name or number. So if the application misinterpreted the command it is easy to start the dialing/searching process again.

Commands:
The application comes with a wealth of standard commands (as well as variants) such as:
-Call contact
-Call contact at/on location
-Dial number
-Callback
-Redial
-Show contact
-What’s my next appointment?
-What’s my schedule today?
-What’s my schedule tomorrow?
-Play music
-Play album
-Start program
-What time is it?
-What day is it?
-What is my battery level?
-Turn on/off flight mode
-What is my signal strength?
-What calls have I missed?

The application will respond appropriately with information for each of these commands. All of them work very well with my P3600. In no time, I started to wonder how and why I had managed to live all these years without this utility.

Notification:
VoiceCommand can be configured to notify the user of a variety of events such as incoming call, upcoming event, etc. It could get a little embarrassing when the phone suddenly speaks up via the built-in speaker that there is an incoming call from so-and-so right in the middle of a meeting. Otherwise, this notification feature is handy to have for those who do not mind a little nagging every once in a while.

Pet Peeve:
It is really not a VoiceCommand problem: certain phones are not able to route audio from the phone's speaker and microphone to a Bluetooth headset. This is well documented on the Microsoft VoiceCommand site and it does diminish the end-to-end user experience somewhat.

Conclusion:
The application makes hands-free operation of a PDA phone or smartphone feasible and easy. With it, one could virtually conduct all common interactions with the phone while keeping both hands on the steering wheel and casting nary a glance at the screen. A real gem.


Recommended: Yes