Zicelo vs. Gboard dictation: which to choose for Romanian

If you have Android, you already have dictation: the microphone button in Gboard. It's free, fast, and works in any app. So why install something else? The short answer: Gboard transcribes what you say, Zicelo writes what you meant to say. The difference shows in the final text, especially in Romanian.

In Brief

Where Gboard excels

For short messages, Gboard is hard to beat: tap the mic, say “I’ll be there in ten minutes”, done. It even works offline for some languages if you’ve downloaded the offline package, and it doesn’t require an account. If you send three voice messages a day, you don’t need anything else.

Where it breaks down: work text

Problems arise when you dictate something longer than a sentence. Natural speech doesn’t look like written text: we start phrases twice, self-correct on the fly, insert “so” and “basically” everywhere. A faithful transcription keeps all that. Here’s the same sentence, said once:

“so for Thursday’s meeting uh send Andrei the September report not October and tell him we’re two days late”

A classic dictation delivers exactly the text above, maybe without the “uh”. You have to delete the “so”, move the “not October”, add commas. Zicelo writes directly:

For Thursday’s meeting, send Andrei the October report and tell him we’re two days late.

The difference seems small for one sentence. For a ten-line email, it’s the difference between “dictate and correct for five minutes” and “dictate and send.”

Diacritics and names

Romanian has a special problem: ș and ț. Many devices still show the cedilla versions (ş, ţ), which look almost the same but aren’t the same letters – and they break searches, sorting, and sometimes display. Zicelo always uses the correct forms, with the comma. The same goes for proper names: if you work with “Kaufland”, “SeniorERP” or a client with a Hungarian name, add them once to the dictionary and they’ll come out right every time, even if you pronounce them slightly differently.

Your computer matters

Most of your work writing happens on your computer: emails, Slack, Teams, documents, CRM. Gboard doesn’t exist there. Zicelo works in any Windows program: hold Ctrl+Win, speak, release, and the text appears where your cursor is. On your phone, use the Zicelo keyboard or the dictation bubble, which sits on top of Gboard – no need to give up your familiar keyboard.

Command mode: what no keyboard does

Select a text and say what you want to do with it: “make it more polite”, “translate to English”, “turn into a list”, “cut in half”. The text is replaced with the result. It’s like having a writing assistant in any text box without opening a separate chat.

When to choose what

• Gboard if you dictate rarely, send short messages, only on your phone, and don’t mind correcting.
• Zicelo if you write a lot for work, on your computer, in Romanian, and want text ready to send. Also if you want the same correct words on all devices.

You can use both together: the Zicelo bubble appears over Gboard only when you need it. Download Zicelo and try it on a real email – you’ll notice the difference on day one.