← Q2 2026

Q2 2026

Model Watch

What we know and do not know about models — opinions, briefs, and eval teasers.

• 
  May 12, 2026

  Which Open Model Should You Actually Run Locally?

  We tested 7 model families across 3 runtimes on a 64 GB Mac. gemma-4-26b-a4b hits 95% in 4 minutes with thinking off. The runtime barely matters — but thinking mode changes everything.

• 
  April 4, 2026

  Gemma 4 on Your Machine: How Google’s New Open Weights Stack Up (Model Showdown)

  We benchmarked Gemma 4 (e2b, default, 26B MoE, 31B dense) through Ollama against 50+ hosted and local models on reasoning, knowledge, instruction, coding, and TezLab MCP tool use—same Umwelten harness as our other showdowns. Here’s where the new line shines, where frontier models still pull ahead, and how the biggest Gemma handles real EV data tools.