Overview

Dial and Command allows you to do two things, initiate communications and start certain Nokia 3650 applications. Using recorded "tags", that you create against contact records, commands and shortcuts, a long press on the hang-up button (the red one on the left above the key pad) activates the application so that spoken commands are matched to the tags and the associated actions performed. In short you tell your Nokia 3650 what to do and NeuVoice Dial and Command does it for you.

Installation

Installation is straightforward as NeuVoice has used a standard Symbian SIS file to deliver Dial and Command. Once installed you get two new icons on the main menu of your Nokia 3650, "NV rec" and "NV tag".

"NV rec" is the recognizer application which must be running for Dial and Command to work, however once opened it can simply be left in the background. I must give one word of warning to users who regularly use applications like Opera. Memory hunger applications like Opera close other applications to free enough memory to operate, they will also close "NV rec". As a result it pays to check that "NV rec" is running after sessions with larger applications.

The second icon, "NV tag", is the application in which you record tags and set-up the recognition options for Dial and Command.

Setting Up

In some ways thinking of Dial and Command as a Dialer is wrong, it is more a Communicate and Command application. So your voice can be used to initiate communications by any of the mechanisms available on your Nokia 3650, voice call, SMS, MMS or email.

However before you can start doing anything you need to provide voice tags for your contact, communication commands and application shortcuts.

When you open NV tag it loads your current contacts database. If you have a large contacts database you will very soon notice there is no search, so when you want to set up the tag for a Wilson or William it requires a lot of scrolling. You could select and train the entire contacts list but that could take a long time and simply is not practical. NeuVoice, if you have an improvements list please put this one at the top of it.

You can record tags (or train contacts and commands as NeuVoice describes it) individually or in a batch. To train a batch you select all the contacts you want to create tags for, then selecting Train from the menu will start the process of recording tags. NeuVoice highlights the contact being trained, asks "Speak after the tone" and sounds a tone (it also displays a message, "Start speaking ..." followed by the contact name). You now clearly speak the contacts name, and obviously this is best done in a quiet environment. If NeuVoice detects your spoken tag it will play back what you said, otherwise issue a warning "Voice too quiet, please try again". If the tag is successfully created you move to the next selected contact, if processing a batch. If you are processing a batch and do not successfully add a tag, training stops, but the untrained records remain marked so you can start again. Once successfully tagged the contact is marked with a little pacman icon.

Having trained and tagged your contacts the next task is to train the command tags using the same process.

In most cases you will now be ready to start using the Dial capabilities. However you may wish to fine tune your contacts. Selecting Edit from the contact screen menu allows you to set several parameters; whether the Fast Action is activated and confirm that the correct phone number and email have been set up for each contact.

Fast Action is a recognition option which, after matching a tag, immediately initiates a contact action rather than waiting for the contact action command to be given. The fact that the default fast action for all contacts is "Home" I find slightly incongruous, as I would have expected most users to be wanting the Work or Mobile number as the default. If you only have a business number for a contact, the "home" number is populated with the "business" number anyway, but the addition of a feature to select the standard default Fast Action would be nice, though certainly not essential.

The final set up action is to create voice tags for the shortcuts, again following what should now be a familiar process.

Making that Call

Once the setup is complete Dial and Command is really very easy to use, you simply give a long press on the Nokia 3650's red hang-up button and the Tag Recognizer will ask you to "Speak after the tone". After the tone you say the contact name you want to contact, or the command for the application shortcut. When NeuVoice matches the tag it plays it back, which may initially seem excessive. However in environments where there is a lot of background noise and the accuracy of recognition starts to deteriorate it is useful, particularly to allow you to cancel an erroneously matched Fast Action (although the fact that it does not provide any audible warning if it failed to find a match, slightly obviates the usefulness of this feature.)

What happens next after this first match will depend on what you said and whether Fast Action is on.

• If you spoke a shortcut then Dial and Command will start the application.
• If Fast Action is on and you spoke a contact name, Dial and Command will immediately initiate the Fast Action for that contact and dial a number, or open the SMS, MMS or email editor, as appropriate.
• If Fast Action is off and you spoke a contact name then Dial and Command will ask "Say command after the tone" and speaking the "dial" command will dial a number, or open the SMS, MMS or email editor, as appropriate.

In Use

I have not used the Nokia 3650's in build voice dialer much, the limitation of 25 numbers and the fact that it was hard to differentiate between the same persons land line and mobile, made it largely impractical for everyday use. By comparison NeuVoice's Dial and Command is a wonder, unlimited tags, multiple "dial" command and the Fast Action option makes it very practical, although training a large number of contacts is time consuming.

Equally useful are the application shortcuts and, for me, the record option, which starts the Nokia 3650's voice memo recorder. This is great for being able to quickly record thoughts without having to navigate through the menu - find extras, open recorder select "Record a new sound clip" and then think "what was that I wanted to record?" ? one long key press and "record" is so practical. I think that this feature alone could justify the purchase of Dial and Command.

The most important factor with a voice recognition package is how well it managed to match spoken commands with tags and the range of environment in which matches can be reliably made. I found that in most everyday environments, the office or the car it works almost flawlessly. As the background noise increases, out on the street or in a caf頩t gets less accurate, but the accuracy is still good and perfectly usably. In these environments I found using the handsfree significantly improves recognition rates.

I have already mentioned a couple of small problems, the absence of a search on the contacts screen and the default fast action. The other little niggle is that doing a long keypress using the handsfree button starts the native voice dialing. However I expect there is little NeuVoice can do about that, and you get used to it.

Conclusion

Voice recognition software is one of those applications which you will either love and use regularly or simply just not find useful. If you have used the in-build voice dialing on your Nokia 3650 and found it useful, but too limited, then NeuVoice Dial and Command is certainly for you. If you have always wanted to access key functions by voice, Dial and Command will also be what you are looking for. Either way you will find Dial and Command both functional and accurate and a worthwhile addition to your Nokia 3650.

NeuVoice Dial and Command is also available for the Nokia 7650 and Nokia 6600. Versions for future Series 60 phones from Nokia and others are also likely.

Where To Buy

You can download an evaluation copy of NeuVoice Dial and Command from here on Handango. NeuVoice Dial and Command costs US $15.99 for the Nokia 3650 and Nokia 6600 versions and US $9.99 for the Nokia 7650 version.