Mercury 3 vs Laguna S 2.1
Mercury 3 took 7 min 31 s and $0.065 at list price, Laguna S 2.1 took 2 min 43 s and $0.003 at list price. Mercury 3 took 2.8× as long and cost 20× as much.
Mercury 3
Inception · $0.35/M out · 258 HN pts
Laguna S 2.1
Poolside · $0.18/M out · free route · 430 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.
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.
Patchbay is een drie personen studio in Rotterdam die zich specialiseert in het repareren van vintage synthesizers. Onze missie is om de magie van klassieke elektronische instrumenten levendig te houden en te delen met een nieuwe generatie makers en musicians.
Gestart door twee ervaren technici en een ontwerper, combineren wij technische precisie met een diep begrip van elektronische muziekgeschiedenis. Wij geloven dat elk oud apparaat een verhaal heeft en een unieke klank die bijdragen aan de creatieve processen van artiesten.
Onze aanpak is zorgvuldig en respectvol. Elk apparaat wordt met de grootste zorg behandeld, met gebruik van oorspronkelijke onderdelen wanneer mogelijk en moderne technieken wanneer nodig. We streven altijd naar een perfecte balans tussen authenticiteit en betrouwbaarheid.
Of je nu een geliefde vintage synth moet repareren of hulp nodig hebt bij het onderhouden van je collectie, Patchbay staat klaar om je instrumenten weer in geluid te brengen. Neem contact op voor een consult; wij kijken uit naar het horen van je project.
Specs and numbers
| Mercury 3 | Laguna S 2.1 | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Inception | Poolside |
| Made in | US | France |
| Released | 16 Oct 2026 | 21 Jul 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $0.10 | free route (list $0.09/M) |
| Price out, per M tokens | $0.35 | free route (list $0.18/M) |
| Context | 1,000,000 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens |
| Weights | closed | open |
| Hacker News points | 258 | 430 |
| Time for the six prompts | 7 min 31 s | 2 min 43 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $0.065 | $0.003 |
Laguna S 2.1 was cheaper: $0.061 less at list price, and less on each of the 6 prompts. Laguna S 2.1 was faster: 4 min 48 s less in total, and faster on 4 of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, Mercury 3's Breakout game stopped painting; Laguna S 2.1's plays.





