MiniMax M3.1 Flash vs Claude Sonnet 5.5
MiniMax M3.1 Flash took 23 min 37 s and $0.095 at list price, Claude Sonnet 5.5 took 3 min 49 s and $0.34 at list price. MiniMax M3.1 Flash took 6.2× as long, and Claude Sonnet 5.5 cost 3.6× as much.
MiniMax M3.1 Flash
MiniMax · $0.60/M out · 550 HN pts
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Anthropic · $10.00/M out · 9 HN pts
Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 has CLI runs here (Claude Code).
Pelican
Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle
Watch
Draw a mechanical wristwatch that shows the current local time, with a sweeping seconds hand and a date window. Make it look expensive.
Landing
Build the landing page for Lumen Cycles, a Copenhagen workshop that builds custom cargo bikes to order. Make it look like a real brand you would trust with 4,000 euros.
Breakout
Make a Breakout game I can play right now with the keyboard or the mouse. Give it several levels, a score and some juice.
Logo
Design a logo for Night Heron, an independent bookshop that only opens after dark.
About
Write the opening of the About us page for Patchbay, a three-person studio in Rotterdam that repairs vintage synthesizers. About 150 words.
Patchbay is a three-person studio in Rotterdam dedicated to bringing vintage synthesizers back to life. We repair analog and digital instruments that shaped the sound of music, from classic drum machines and polyphonic synths to quirky, characterful machines that rarely leave a musician’s side. Our work combines technical knowledge with respect for each instrument’s history, because a synth is more than a circuit board: it carries the decisions, compromises, and personality of its original design.
We diagnose faults, restore unreliable voices, and carefully service aging components without erasing the character that made an instrument worth keeping. Whether a machine has been silent for years or simply needs a thoughtful tune-up, we treat every repair as a careful act of restoration.
Based in Rotterdam, Patchbay works with musicians, studios, collectors, and anyone who believes electronic instruments deserve another chapter. We restore them to sound as they should, preserving the details that make each one unique.
Patchbay is three people in a workshop in Rotterdam, trying to keep old synthesizers alive. We repair, restore and recalibrate the instruments that shaped electronic music: Moogs and Oberheims, Rolands and Sequential Circuits, the odd temperamental Soviet oddity that someone found in an attic.
Most of what lands on our benches has been silent for years. A crackling pot, a drifting oscillator, a power supply that gave up in 1994. Some come from working musicians who need their instrument back before the next tour. Others come from people who inherited a dusty box from a parent and want to hear what it sounds like.
We work slowly and by hand. We trace faults with a scope and a schematic, source or rebuild parts when originals are gone, and change as little as we can. Every synth leaves with a note describing exactly what we did, so the next person to open it knows where we have been.
Come by, bring your synth, and stay for coffee.
Specs and numbers
| MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | MiniMax | Anthropic |
| Made in | China | US |
| Released | 19 Oct 2026 | 28 Sep 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $0.15 | $2.00 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $0.60 | $10.00 |
| Context | 1,048,576 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Weights | open | closed |
| Hacker News points | 550 | 9 |
| Time for the six prompts | 23 min 37 s | 3 min 49 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $0.095 | $0.34 |
MiniMax M3.1 Flash was cheaper: $0.25 less at list price, and less on each of the 6 prompts. Claude Sonnet 5.5 was faster: 19 min 49 s less in total, and faster on each of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, both Breakout games play.
Rebuild this screen experiment: MiniMax M3.1 Flash's rebuild matched the screenshot at 78%, Claude Sonnet 5.5's 94%. Tea Garden experiment: MiniMax M3.1 Flash's game passed 5 of 5 checks, Claude Sonnet 5.5's 5 of 5.