For the past year I've been struggling to maintain a sense of purpose. I felt after ten years of retirement that I'd run out steam, that I'd lost momentum. However, it occurred to me only recently that I can ride the current AI wave and keep myself motivated and constantly challenged. The Creatine supplements that I've been taking over the past month or so seem to be kick-started my brain, dispelled my brain fog and mild depression and given me a new lease on life.
Given my existing reliance on the Google ecosystem, it's only natural to focus on Gemini and not be distracted too much by other AI alternatives. To that end I've availed myself of a free month of Gemini Pro with the option to continue on a paid plan after December 21st at a cost of about A$35 per month. It's probably money well spent if I decide to step up my involvement in AI.
So far my use of Gemini has been rather modest. I've created a HTML launch pad for apps and websites in the Chrome browser, I've used NotebookLM to create audio and video overviews of sources and I've played around with Nano Bananas as reported earlier. Here is a table that Gemini generated to highlight the differences between the free and paid versions.
| Feature | Gemini (Free) | Gemini Advanced (Paid) |
| Core Model | Gemini 2.5 Flash (Optimized for speed and low latency) | Gemini 2.5 Pro / 3.0 Pro Preview (The "Thinking" models with high reasoning capabilities) |
| Context Window | 32k Tokens (Approx. 50 pages of text. Good for a single chapter.) | 1 Million Tokens (Approx. 1,500 pages. Upload entire codebases, huge PDFs, or hours of video.) |
| Deep Research | Limited Access (~5 reports/month. Uses the "Fast" model for surface-level web synthesis.) | Full Access (~20–50 reports/month. Uses "Deep Think" to browse dozens of sites, synthesizing a 5,000-word report.) |
| Image Gen ("Nano Banana") | Nano Banana (Standard) (~15–20 images/day. Standard resolution. Good for quick visualization.) | Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Image) (~1,000 images/day. High-fidelity, text-rendering capable, 4K upscaling.) |
| NotebookLM | Standard (Limit of 50 sources per notebook. Standard audio overview duration.) | NotebookLM Plus (Included. 5x higher source limits, extended Audio Overviews, and "Deep Dive" study guides.) |
| Daily Rate Limits | Dynamic / Low (Approx. 50–100 complex queries/day before you are throttled or switched to a smaller model.) | High Priority (Approx. 1,000+ complex queries/day. No throttling during peak hours.) |
| Coding & Python | Basic Execution (Can run simple snippets. Good for one-off scripts.) | Asynchronous Agent (Can run persistent Python sessions to solve multi-step math/data problems or edit complex files.) |
| Eco-system | Chat Only (You must copy-paste text into Docs or Gmail manually.) | Integrated (Workspace) (Gemini lives inside Docs, Gmail, and Slides. "Rewrite this email," "Create a slide deck from this Doc".) |
| Data Privacy | Training Mode (Your chats may be used to train models unless you disable it.) | Enterprise-Grade (Your data is not used to train the models. Crucial for proprietary work.) |
The "Switch" Verdict
If you are on the fence, here is the brutal truth about why you would upgrade:
You hit the "Stupid" Wall: The Free version (Flash) is fast, but it hallucinates on complex tasks. If you ask for a specific citation or a complex coding refactor, Flash often guesses. Advanced (Pro/Ultra) actually thinks (using chain-of-thought processing) before answering.
The "Deep Research" Killer Feature: If you have ever spent 3 hours Googling to write a report, the paid Deep Research feature does that 3 hours of work in 5 minutes. It visits 40+ websites, reads them, and compiles a sourced report. The free version gives you a "lite" taste (5/month), but the paid version is a daily workflow tool.
"Nano Banana" is not a toy: The free image generator is for fun. The paid Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Image) handles text correctly (e.g., generating a cafe sign that actually says "Coffee" and not "Cofefe") and follows strict brand guidelines, which is essential if you are using this for work.
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