Gemini 4 Carbon vs Mistral Large 4
Gemini 4 Carbon took 18 min 40 s and $1.05 at list price, Mistral Large 4 took 51 min 22 s and $0.61 at list price. Mistral Large 4 took 2.8× as long, and Gemini 4 Carbon cost 1.7× as much.
Gemini 4 Carbon
Google · $10.00/M out · 308 HN pts
Mistral Large 4
Mistral · $2.10/M out · 4,717 HN pts
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.
Tucked away in a bright workshop near the Rotterdam docks, Patchbay is a three-person studio dedicated to keeping electronic music history alive. We repair, restore, and calibrate vintage synthesizers, drum machines, and outboard gear. Whether it is a temperamental Juno with failing voice chips, a road-worn Minimoog drifting out of tune, or an obscure polysynth needing a complete overhaul, our benches are built for machines that make noise.
Between the three of us, we combine decades of experience in electronics, sound design, and obsessive troubleshooting. We do not view classic synthesizers as fragile museum pieces meant to sit behind glass; they are working instruments built to be played, patched, and pushed to their limits. Armed with original schematics, precision test gear, and a deep respect for analog circuitry, we bring tired hardware back from the brink—ready for another forty years in the studio or on stage.
Patchbay sits in a former warehouse on Rotterdam's northern edge, where the Maas meets the industrial harbour. Three of us work here—no more, no less—surrounded by oscilloscopes, desoldering stations, and the persistent hum of transformers. We repair vintage synthesizers. That is the whole business.
We are not a museum, and we are not a factory. Every Minimoog, ARP 2600, or Juno that crosses our bench receives the same stubborn attention: traced schematics, replaced capacitors, calibrated voltages, hours spent listening for the note that was never quite right. The machines arrive broken, silent, forgotten. They leave singing.
Rotterdam built its reputation on moving heavy things and keeping them moving. We apply the same pragmatism to circuits that predate us by forty years. If it made sound once, it can make sound again. That is the promise we keep, solder joint by solder joint.
Specs and numbers
| Gemini 4 Carbon | Mistral Large 4 | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Mistral | |
| Made in | US | France |
| Released | 10 Nov 2026 | 6 Oct 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $2.00 | $0.70 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $10.00 | $2.10 |
| Context | 1,048,576 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens |
| Weights | closed | open |
| Hacker News points | 308 | 4,717 |
| Time for the six prompts | 18 min 40 s | 51 min 22 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $1.05 | $0.61 |
Mistral Large 4 was cheaper: $0.44 less at list price, and less on 5 of the 6 prompts. Gemini 4 Carbon was faster: 32 min 43 s less in total, and faster on 3 of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, both Breakout games play.
Rebuild this screen experiment: Mistral Large 4's rebuild matched the screenshot at 46%; Gemini 4 Carbon was not in it. Tea Garden experiment: Mistral Large 4's game passed 2 of 5 checks; Gemini 4 Carbon was not in it.