Pareto 26.9 vs MiniMax M3
Pareto 26.9 took 10 min 32 s and $0.34 at list price, MiniMax M3 took 33 min 3 s and $0.21 at list price. MiniMax M3 took 3.1× as long, and Pareto 26.9 cost 1.6× as much.
Pareto 26.9
Unbiased · $7.50/M out
MiniMax M3
MiniMax · $1.20/M out · 144 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 small workshop in the heart of Rotterdam, where three people spend their days elbow-deep in the guts of vintage synthesizers. We fix the machines that made the sounds you grew up with—the ones that shaped entire genres and then got left in basements when the tech moved on. But we're not a museum. Our benches are covered in solder, schematics, and the occasional broken key that's been there for two weeks longer than we'd like to admit.
We started this studio because we got tired of seeing classic gear being stripped for parts, or worse, turned into Instagram decor. These instruments deserve better. They were built to make noise, and we want to keep them doing exactly that.
Between the three of us, we've fixed everything from a 1960s Buchla to a beat-up Juno that fell down a flight of stairs. If you've got a synth that's gone quiet, bring it in. We'll bring it back.
Patchbay began in a cluttered apartment in Rotterdam, where three friends spent weekends coaxing old synthesizers back to life. What started as a shared obsession quickly outgrew the living room. In 2016, we opened our first proper workshop in a converted warehouse on the south side of the city, and we have been soldering, calibrating, and listening closely ever since.
We are a small team of three. Niels handles the analog work, coaxing warm tones from aging oscillators and reluctant filters. Marijn focuses on digital systems and the occasional stubborn MIDI quirk. Sanna manages restorations, sourcing rare components and keeping long projects on track. Between us, we have decades of experience with the machines that shaped electronic music.
Every synth that passes through our doors carries decades of sound inside it. Our job is to make sure that story continues.
Specs and numbers
| Pareto 26.9 | MiniMax M3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Unbiased | MiniMax |
| Made in | — | China |
| Released | 13 Oct 2026 | 31 May 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $2.50 | $0.30 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $7.50 | $1.20 |
| Context | 262,144 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens |
| Weights | closed | open |
| Hacker News points | — | 144 |
| Time for the six prompts | 10 min 32 s | 33 min 3 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $0.34 | $0.21 |
MiniMax M3 was cheaper: $0.13 less at list price, and less on 3 of the 6 prompts. Pareto 26.9 was faster: 22 min 30 s less in total, and faster on 5 of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, both Breakout games play. Pareto 26.9's landing page was cut off at the output limit (12,000 tokens).