I would strongly recommend that you try NVDA. Your going to get some people saying NVDA is better, and some people saying JAWS is better. Personally I like NVDA better and use it every day, but the question really isn't which screen reader is better. The thing you need to figure out is which option will be better for what you will be doing. Thankfully, since NVDA is free and open source you can go ahead and download it to try it out. I would recommend doing that and then see if you run into any use cases where NVDA seems to be falling short. If you do run into something like that, do some research and find out if JAWS can handle the issue better. If it turns out that jaws handles the issue better, you will have to decide if that is worth the price. Because the keystrokes etc. are pretty similar between NVDA and jaws, I don't think you will have any major issues if you start out on NVDA and decide to change to jaws in the future.

Personally I find that NVDA does 99 percent of what I need it to do, as good or better then jaws. Plus I like NVDA much much much much better on a philosophical level. If jaws works much better for something that is crucial for your job, then it's well worth the cost. However, I believe NVDA is the best option for the vast majority of people out there. I am really glad that we have options, I just know which option works best for me.

Oh yeh, about voices, I really like the windows 10 David voice, which will be built into your computer if your running windows 10. You can use it with NVDA without even having to download anything. I believe NVDA will be supporting even more Microsoft voices with it's next update.

Good luck with whatever choice you go with.

NVDA, in my experience, is faster, more stable, supports new OS features quicker, works better with Firefox and Chrome, and is an overall better product. You might find this tutorial useful: https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda-community/wiki/Switching-from-Window-Eyes-to-NVDA

The only place where JAWS has more features is in the advanced functions of Microsoft Office. And by that, I don't mean just typing up a few documents in word, or maybe making a couple simple powerpoints or spreadsheets. I mean if you're doing stuff like writing VBA macros, doing complex stuff with Microsoft Access databases, using track changes and document murges to collaborate with many people in an organization, etc. If all you're doing is writing, spell checking, printing, formatting, and all the other basic stuff that's all 99 percent of people ever do, NVDA is just fine.

There's a recent podcast called AT Banter that talked to someone at NVDA .. might offer some insight as well .. https://soundcloud.com/user-639785526/at-banter-podcast-episode-54-quentin-christensen-and-ndva

I use NVDA. I'm honestly busy at the moment, so I don't have the time to break down how NVDA is better than JAWS in almost absolutely every way, so I'm hoping someone else will. Definitely go with NVDA though: it's free, faster than JAWS, has addon support, open source, you can create portable copies, I could go on and on.

NVDA is generally good but there are some disadvantages in my view:

1. Navigation in applications that don't have good tab ordering or where controls are unreachable by the keyboard is easier with JAWS, with the invisible or JAWS cursor. It is possible with NVDA but object navigation (and even flat review) is a little more confusing and complicated.

2. NVDA has ESpeak as its default voice. Many people don't like it. I am not so bothered by it particularly, but it's a consideration, especially if one is used to another voice like Eloquence.

3. I'd say JAWS is a little better in some contexts. For example, console use. But NVDA is better in some others.

In sum, I think it depends a lot on the specific mix of things you plan to do which one would be preferable.