Beam 1.0 vs Mercury 3
Beam 1.0 took 2 min 35 s and $0.063 at list price, Mercury 3 took 7 min 31 s and $0.065 at list price. Mercury 3 took 2.9× as long, and both cost about the same.
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 devoted to repairing vintage synthesizers and keeping electronic instruments alive. We work with analog and digital keyboards, drum machines, and modular systems, restoring worn circuits, replacing fragile components, and returning each machine to reliable musical use. Our small team combines careful technical work with genuine respect for the instruments that shaped decades of music. Whether an instrument needs a routine service, a difficult diagnosis, or a full restoration, we approach it with patience, clear communication, and attention to detail. We believe these machines are not just equipment; they are tools with history, character, and sound worth preserving. Based in Rotterdam, we serve musicians, collectors, and studios who want their gear maintained properly and played again. At Patchbay, every repair is treated as a collaboration between craft and music, ensuring that classic synthesizers continue to inspire new sounds for years to come.
Patchbay is a three-person repair studio in Rotterdam, tucked between a bike shop and a coffee roastery, where vintage synthesizers come to live another life. We are not a factory and we are not a museum; we are technicians who love the smell of warm solder and the patience that old circuits demand. Between us we have restored everything from early Moog modulars to battered Junos, and we treat each instrument as if it were the first one we ever opened. There is no assembly line here. Every capacitor is tested, every busbar tracked by hand, and every voice board is listened to twice—once on the bench, once through the speakers of the synth that will use it. Patchbay exists because these machines deserve more than a quick fix. They deserve someone who knows their quirks, their failures, and the strange, beautiful sounds that made us fall in love with them in the first place.
Specs and numbers
| Beam 1.0 | Mercury 3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Reflection AI | Inception |
| Made in | US | US |
| Released | 16 Oct 2026 | 16 Oct 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $0.25 | $0.10 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $1.00 | $0.35 |
| Context | 1,048,576 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Weights | open | closed |
| Hacker News points | — | 258 |
| Time for the six prompts | 2 min 35 s | 7 min 31 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $0.063 | $0.065 |
Both cost about the same at list price: $0.063 and $0.065. Beam 1.0 was faster: 4 min 55 s less in total, and faster on 4 of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, Beam 1.0's Breakout game plays; Mercury 3's stopped painting.





