Ignoring benchmarks, how do the newest local models (gemma 4 31B, 26BA4B, Qwen 3.6) “feel” to you? What do you think they compare to?

I use local ai mainly for creative writing, and benchmarks are a bit iffy on that I feel like. I’d like to compare Gemma mainly to Gemini as I like their writing the best, I do know that qwen 3.6 is amazing but mostly for coding and agentic work.

I’d like to ask everyone how the new(er?) models feel to you personally rather than looking at benchmarks which they are likely optimised for.

For me, I feel like Gemma 4 31B (even q4) still falls short of 2.5 pro, I’m most familiar with 2.5 pro since I used so much of it for free on ai studio when it was a preview.

The style and prose are there but long context it still misremembers minor details.

I think it’s actually better than gpt 4.5, but tha could be personal preference since, again, I do mostly only creative writing