nano banana 2 lite vs nano banana 2 vs gpt image 2 vs mai image 2.5

google dropped nano banana 2 lite. speed + cost play. we ran it against the top-3 text-to-image models on @arena – 5 prompts, different styles (sci-fi, retro film, dark fantasy, isometric, surreal). all models run via api on @aimlapi platform

totals across all 5 prompts:
• nano banana 2 lite – 25s / $0.219
• nano banana 2 – 1m 10s / $0.437
• mai image 2.5 – 1m 30s / $0.316
• gpt image 2 – 5m 00s / $0.345

thoughts: lite is in a different weight class on speed. it's ~3x faster than its own big brother and 12x faster than gpt image 2, while being the cheapest of the bunch. for rapid drafting/prototyping that gap is real

on google's claims:

- "4 second latency" – roughly holds. we saw 4-6s, avg ~5s. legit fast

- "$0.034 per 1k image" – the $0.043 we saw is ~30% higher because of the routing platform commission, so google's claim holds if you pay for nano banana 2 lite directly in their ai studio

- "reliable prompt adherence, character consistency, legible in-image text" – adherence and text are fine for a lite model, no complaints there.

but the tradeoff is visible. the quality is lower than the other top models – you can see it with a naked eye