Arena hands-on puts Gemini 4 Pro and Opus 5.5 in the same top tier
After trying Gemini 4 Pro, Gemini 3.8 Flash, Opus 5.5 and GPT-6 Astra side by side on Arena, the author ranks the first two strongest, places Astra in the middle and finds Flash better than its price suggests.
Spent some time with Gemini 4 Pro (arena), Gemini 3.8 Flash, Claude Opus 5.5 and GPT-6 Astra side by side. My read, not a benchmark table. Gemini 4 Pro and Opus 5.5 are sitting in a different tier right now. Both hold the thread on long tasks and stop inventing things when the question gets narrow. 3.8 Flash surprised me for what it is. For a fast tier it holds up far better than the price would suggest. Astra lands in the middle. I would put it above 3.8 Flash, and behind Gemini 4 Pro and Opus 5.5 on the work I care about. Treat this as one person's impression. Your workload will rank them differently.