Mistral Large 4 vs Ling 3.1 Flash
Mistral Large 4 took 51 min 22 s and $0.61 at list price, Ling 3.1 Flash took 75 min 28 s and $0.055 at list price. Ling 3.1 Flash took 1.5× as long, and Mistral Large 4 cost 11× as much.
Mistral Large 4
Mistral · $2.10/M out · 4,680 HN pts
Ling 3.1 Flash
inclusionAI · $0.225/M out · 1 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 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.
Patchbay is a small repair studio in Rotterdam dedicated to keeping vintage synthesizers alive. We are three people — a technician, a historian, and a musician — who believe that the instruments built in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s still have decades of sound left in them, if someone is willing to care for them properly.
We work on everything from early Moogs and Arps to Roland Junos and Oberheim OB-series, handling everything from dead power supplies and leaky batteries to full recaps and voice board restoration. Our workshop is small by design. We take on a limited number of instruments at a time, which means every synth that comes through our door gets our full attention.
Most of our clients are working musicians, collectors, and small studios across Europe, but we also welcome instruments with stories we'd love to hear. If you have a piece of synth history that needs care, we'd be glad to talk.
Specs and numbers
| Mistral Large 4 | Ling 3.1 Flash | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Mistral | inclusionAI |
| Made in | France | China |
| Released | 6 Oct 2026 | 2 Oct 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $0.70 | $0.075 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $2.10 | $0.225 |
| Context | 1,048,576 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Weights | open | closed |
| Hacker News points | 4,680 | 1 |
| Time for the six prompts | 51 min 22 s | 75 min 28 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $0.61 | $0.055 |
Ling 3.1 Flash was cheaper: $0.56 less at list price, and less on each of the 6 prompts. Mistral Large 4 was faster: 24 min 6 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%; Ling 3.1 Flash was not in it. Tea Garden experiment: Mistral Large 4's game passed 2 of 5 checks; Ling 3.1 Flash was not in it.