Google's New Gemini 2.0: Flash vs. Pro and More!

Google has just dropped Gemini 2.0, and it comes with four new models to check out. I've been playing around with them, and I want to walk you through what each one does, what it's good for, and how the free versus paid plans stack up. This way, you can figure out which Gemini model is best for your needs.

You can access Gemini for free at gemini.com. There's also a paid upgrade called Gemini Advanced, which costs $20 a month. Some of the models I'll talk about are only available if you have that paid subscription.

Gemini 2.0 Flash: The Speedy All-Rounder

First up is Gemini 2.0 Flash, which is available to everyone. This is your go-to for general use, acting as a large language model and chatbot. It's optimized for speed and efficiency, making it a great option if you just need quick answers.

For example, you can ask it to summarize a news article or provide a link, and it will browse the web to get the information. I found this model to be the fastest I've tested so far. If speed is your main concern, Gemini 2.0 Flash is definitely worth considering.

Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking (Experimental): For Complex Problems

Next, we have Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking, which is an experimental reasoning model. Unlike the Flash model, this one doesn't have real-time web access, so it's best used when you don't need current information from the internet. It's designed for more complex problem-solving.

I tested its reasoning abilities with a few tricky questions. For instance, when asked to compare numbers like 9.11 and 9.9, it provided a step-by-step breakdown of its thinking process, correctly identifying 9.9 as the larger number. It also handled a riddle about things that are coming but never arrive, giving answers like "tomorrow" and "the future."

Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking (with Apps): Integrated Google Tools

This version builds on the Flash Thinking model by adding integration with other Google apps, like YouTube, Maps, and Google Search. This makes it super useful for tasks that require information from these sources.

I asked it to find YouTube tutorials for a specific topic, and after a slight adjustment to my prompt to be more specific about YouTube, it successfully found and even summarized a video. This model can combine reasoning with web and app access, which is pretty powerful.

Gemini 2.0 Pro: The Advanced Paid Option

Finally, there's Gemini 2.0 Pro, which is available only to paid users with the Gemini Advanced subscription. This is the more advanced model, offering a much larger context window of 2 million tokens. This means it can handle significantly larger inputs, like analyzing a thousand-page book.

While Flash is free and fast, Pro is designed for more complicated questions and generally provides better results. A key difference is that currently, Gemini 2.0 Pro can analyze images but cannot upload files for document analysis. For analyzing documents, Gemini 2.0 Flash is the better choice right now.

Key Takeaways

• Gemini 2.0 Flash: Fast, free, general-purpose chatbot with web browsing.
• Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking (Experimental): Good for reasoning and complex problems, but no web access.
• Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking (with Apps): Combines reasoning with YouTube, Maps, and Google Search integration.
• Gemini 2.0 Pro: Paid model ($20/month) with a 2 million token context window for advanced tasks and large inputs.

Comparing the Models

Here's a quick look at how the models compare:

Feature	Gemini 2.0 Flash	Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking (Experimental)	Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking (with Apps)	Gemini 2.0 Pro
Availability	Free	Free	Free	Paid ($20/month)
Speed	Very Fast	Fast	Fast	Moderate
Web Browsing	Yes	No	Yes	No (as of now)
Reasoning	Standard	Advanced	Advanced	Advanced
App Integration	No	No	Yes (YouTube, Maps, Search)	No (as of now)
Context Window	Standard	Standard	Standard	2 Million Tokens
File Uploads	Yes	Yes	Yes	No (only images)
Text-to-Image	Yes (Imagen 3)	No	Yes (Imagen 3)	Yes (Imagen 3)

Other Features and Future Updates

Gemini 2.0 Flash also includes text-to-image capabilities using the new Imagen 3 model, which is a significant improvement over previous versions. For document analysis, the Flash model is currently the best option, allowing uploads of files and even code folders, with integration into Google Drive.

Google is constantly updating these models, so features and capabilities can change. It's a lot to keep track of with all the different AI models out there, but hopefully, this breakdown helps you choose the right Gemini model for your tasks.