Google Gemini Review: Pros, Cons, and Pricing

AI tools are becoming more common, with most users looking for ways to save time and effort. In fact, 68% of consumers say they’re more likely to use AI if it makes life easier.

Speaking of AI tools, Google’s Gemini is one of the most popular AI platforms today, with over 250 million web visits per month in 2024.

But is it really that useful? Let’s break it down in this Gemini review.

What is Google Gemini?

Google Gemini is an advanced AI model developed by Google DeepMind, designed to understand and generate human-like text, images, and audio. It represents a major improvement in Google’s AI, building on what was started with Google Bard.

Bard was primarily focused on text-based interactions, whereas Gemini expands into a more versatile, multimodal framework, enabling it to process and generate diverse types of content.

Latest Gemini Models

Google has introduced several iterations of the Gemini model, each tailored to specific use cases and performance requirements:

• Gemini 2.0 Flash: A next-gen model optimized for speed and multimodal generation, supporting audio, images, videos, and text as input, with text, images, and audio output.
• Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking: An enhanced reasoning model that reveals its thought process to improve performance and explainability, excelling in math, science, and complex problem-solving.
• Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite: A cost-efficient, low-latency variant of Gemini 2.0 Flash, designed for text output from audio, images, videos, and text inputs.
• Gemini 1.5 Flash: A fast and versatile model handling diverse tasks with text output from multimodal inputs, including audio, images, videos, and text.
• Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B: Optimized for high-volume, lower-intelligence tasks, processing multimodal inputs and providing text-based outputs.
• Gemini 1.5 Pro: Designed for complex reasoning tasks, offering advanced intelligence with text output from audio, images, videos, and text inputs.

These models are accessible through the Standard and Advanced versions of Gemini that are available to users. But to truly understand Gemini’s capabilities, you’ll have to use Gemini Advanced.

What is Gemini Advanced?

Gemini Advanced is an enhanced version of the standard Gemini model, offering superior performance and additional features. It is available through the Google One AI Premium plan, which includes 2 TB of storage and enhanced AI features across Google apps.

In the table below, I’ve compared Gemini’s Free version and the Advanced version based on their model access, AI capabilities, integrations, and other important factors.

What is Gem Manager?

Gems are custom AI Agents (experts) within Google’s Gemini ecosystem. They allow users to create personalized AI assistants tailored to specific tasks, preferences, and workflows. For example, a user can create a Gem for writing assistance, coding support, career guidance, or even personal interests like cooking or reading recommendations.

Gem Manager is the tool that helps users manage their Gems. It provides access to pre-made Gems (like a Learning Coach or Writing Editor) and allows users to customize, duplicate, or create new Gems. The Gem Manager also integrates with other Google apps and services, making it easier to refine AI responses based on user-specific instructions.

Gems function as AI teammates that help users automate repetitive tasks, generate creative ideas, and receive more personalized assistance in various aspects of life and work.

What Google Gemini is Good At?

Every AI model excels at some task or the other, and Google Gemini easily handles a wide range of tasks:

Writing

Gemini can create different types of content like articles, stories, poems, emails, and scripts. It adapts to different writing styles and formats, making it useful for various needs. It also summarizes long texts into short, helping users quickly understand documents, research papers, or news articles.

Both Flash 2.0 and Flash 2.0 Thinking are good at writing and providing well-structured responses. In fact, Flash 2.0 Thinking tends to provide more logical answers than other models. But it currently lacks access to real-time info and some Gemini features.

Overall, Google Gemini is great at text generation and summarization. It can create clear, relevant content and summarize long documents effectively. If you’re looking to improve your content, you can use AI content optimization tools for effective and clear writing.

Brainstorming Ideas

Gemini can help generate creative ideas for projects, campaigns, or problem-solving. It offers a wide range of suggestions, making it useful for overcoming writer’s block or exploring new perspectives.

Whether brainstorming strategies, story plots, or gift ideas, it provides fresh and innovative insights.

I personally prefer Flash 2.0 for brainstorming because it provides quick and straightforward responses. You can create a comparison table of ideas and choose the best strategy based on your needs.

Coding Assistant

Gemini can assist with coding tasks by generating code in various programming languages based on user prompts, helping developers work more efficiently.

It can also explain existing code, making it easier to understand and debug, which is useful for learning new languages or navigating unfamiliar codebases.

You can also use it for debugging, translating code between languages, and generating documentation. As you can see in the above screenshots, it provided 3 specific approaches to debug this code, and all methods are effective.

A few months ago, Gemini used to hallucinate while debugging code, but with the latest model, it has improved significantly.

Answering Queries

Gemini can provide detailed and accurate answers to a wide range of questions using its vast knowledge base. It can handle complex queries that require reasoning and synthesizing information.

Whether the question concerns history, science, current events, or other topics, Gemini delivers relevant and insightful responses with citation.

Translation

Gemini can translate text between multiple languages, making communication easier across language barriers. It provides accurate and natural-sounding translations while considering cultural nuances. Whether translating single words, sentences, images, audio, or entire documents, it ensures clarity and precision.

Reasoning

Gemini can handle complex reasoning tasks like solving math problems, answering logic puzzles, and drawing inferences from data.

It analyzes information, identifies patterns, and makes logical deductions. This ability helps it answer complex questions and solve problems effectively.

Where Gemini Needs Improvement?

While Gemini’s pretty good at the tasks I’ve mentioned, it does need to improve in the following areas:

Image Generation

Gemini can generate images, but sometimes the results may not match expectations, especially with complex prompts or detailed requests. Inconsistencies in the images are common.

There are also ethical concerns around AI-generated images, such as preventing misuse and addressing potential harm, which remain important as the technology develops.

Now, Gemini generates images using Imagen 3, and most of the results are promising. As you can see in the screenshot, the image is clear and high-quality.

However, there are a few issues, like the model’s inability to generate political images, famous faces, or celebrity images due to privacy rules. It also sometimes struggles with adding details in crowd scenes. As shown in the screenshots, the model occasionally has trouble spelling words correctly.

Nevertheless, it is improving, and the results are much better than before.

Complex Tasks

Although Gemini has strong reasoning skills, it may struggle with complex, multi-step tasks that require specialized knowledge or nuanced judgment. This can limit its ability to solve problems in some cases, especially those requiring deep expertise.

Accuracy

Gemini sometimes produces “hallucinations”, where it generates plausible but incorrect information. Sometimes it refuses to answer due to privacy policies.

Efforts are underway to reduce these inaccuracies, but you should be cautious as the model’s accuracy is still a work in progress. I’d recommend you to fact-check figures yourself before using them.

Bias

Like other large language models, Gemini is trained on large datasets that may contain biases. These biases can influence the model’s outputs, potentially reinforcing stereotypes or problematic viewpoints. Google is working to address this, but it’s a challenging issue to fully resolve.

Real-time Information

Gemini may not always have the most up-to-date knowledge, especially in fast-changing fields or breaking news. As a result, you may find that some of the information it provides is outdated.

In the screengrab below, the sources should be from March 6, 2025, but they’re dated before March 5. This shows why it’s essential to double-check data and not rely only on AI tools for real-time information.

Citations

Gemini is improving at providing citations for its information, but it’s still a developing area.

As shown in the screenshot, the citations provided are incorrect. I’ve also noticed that sometimes it cites specific websites or images that no longer exist, or the provided links are broken.

To ensure full transparency and accountability, verify the sources independently!

How to Use Google Gemini?

Google Gemini is highly accessible. Here’s how you can use it:

1. Through the Gemini Mobile App (Android)

• Direct Interaction: Download the Google Gemini app from the Google Play Store. You can type or speak your prompts, and even upload images to get information about them.
• Integration with Google Assistant: Set Gemini as your default digital assistant. With this, Gemini will respond when you say “Hey Google” or activate your assistant, offering conversational interactions and hands-free use.
• Contextual Awareness: Gemini can analyze content on your screen, letting you ask questions about other apps’ information.

2. Via the Web (gemini.google.com)

• Web Interface: Visit gemini.google.com on your web browser. You can type prompts and get responses in a conversational format, making it accessible on various devices with a wider screen view.
• Chrome Integration: Initiate Gemini directly from the Chrome address bar by typing “@gemini.”

3. Integration within Google Workspace

• Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive: Gemini is integrated into Google Workspace apps, providing AI assistance for tasks like summarizing emails, generating document drafts, analyzing spreadsheet data, and creating presentations.
• Google Meet: Gemini can assist in meetings by taking notes and summarizing key points.

How Much Does Gemini Cost?

Gemini’s pricing structure varies based on the plan and features you select.

Gemini (Free) offers AI assistance for writing, planning, and learning, with access to Gemini 2.0 Flash models and Google app integration.

Gemini Advanced ($19.99/month, first month free) includes 2.0 Pro, Deep Research, custom AI experts (Gems), code repository uploads, and 2 TB Google One storage. AI-powered search, document analysis, and advanced coding support.

You can access Gemini with Google Workspace. Here are the costs of Google Workspace plans, including Gemini:

Feature	Business Starter	Business Standard	Business Plus	Enterprise
Price (Per User/Month)	$7	$14	$22	Custom
Free Trial	✅ (14 days)	✅ (14 days)	✅ (14 days)	✅ (Custom)
Storage	30 GB/user	2 TB/user	5 TB/user	Unlimited
Gmail & Salesforce Extensions	❌	✅	✅	✅
Schedule Meetings	Basic	Standard	Advanced	Premium
Intent Topics & Filters	❌	✅	✅	✅
International Dialers	❌	❌	✅	✅
Single Sign-On (SSO)	❌	❌	✅	✅
LinkedIn Integration	Through third-party apps	Through third-party apps	Through third-party apps	Through third-party apps
Gemini AI Integration	Limited	Standard	Advanced	Full

For developers, Gemini API pricing depends on usage, with the cost based on the number of tokens and image/video inputs processed.

Google Gemini Alternatives

Here are a few alternative AI assistants you might want to consider:

ChatGPT (OpenAI)

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is known for generating human-like text and excelling in conversation. While Google Gemini is designed to work seamlessly across Google products, ChatGPT stands out in natural language processing and interactive chat tasks.

If you’re looking for conversational AI, ChatGPT might offer different features, such as more GPTs and customization.

Claude (Anthropic)

Claude, from Anthropic, is focused on safety and ethical AI. While Gemini integrates with Google Workspace, Claude emphasizes transparent and safe AI interactions. It’s a good choice for those who prioritize ethical considerations and clear decision-making in AI.

Microsoft Copilot (Bing AI)

Microsoft Copilot, powered by Bing AI, is built for productivity and integrates well with Microsoft Office apps like Word, Excel, and Teams.

While Gemini works with Google Workspace, Copilot is the best choice for those who already use Microsoft 365 and want smooth integration across their tools.

Perplexity AI

Perplexity AI is a newer AI focused on delivering clear, concise responses to user questions. Similar to Gemini, it pulls data from the web. However, unlike Gemini’s broader range of tools, Perplexity AI specializes in search-based answers.

Each platform has its strengths, so the best choice depends on your needs. Whether it’s integration with existing tools or a focus on specialized AI features and safety, there are plenty of available options.

My Opinion About Gemini

From what I’ve experienced, Gemini (2.0 Flash) is a useful AI model. Whether you’re writing emails, brainstorming, or working on coding, it helps you get things done faster and more efficiently.

What makes Gemini special is how versatile it is. With features like deep research and custom AI assistants (called Gems), you can make it work for whatever you need. It also integrates well with Google products like Gmail and Docs, making your work smoother.

That said, it’s not perfect. There are still some areas, like image generation, citation and accuracy, that could improve. But it’s constantly being updated and is already one of the strongest AI tools out there.

If you haven’t tried it yet, I’d suggest giving it a shot. You can start with the free plan to see if it works for you!