I ran the $0.14 model against the $0.44 model expecting a close fight. It lost 4-0. Then I looked at what it does to everything priced in between.
The cheapest model I can run on my plan costs $0.14 per million tokens. The one I actually reach for costs $0.44. I put them side by side expecting the cheap one to be close.
It lost all four benchmarks. Coding, reasoning, math, real-world bug-fixing — four for four.
I'm still recommending it. Not because it competes with the good models. Because of what it does to the models in the middle.
The trade, stated plainly
MiMo-V2.5
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