In case you’ve been living under an AI-generated rock, Google recently released the Nano Banana Pro image reasoning model. And, yes, they just released Nano Banana (classic?) not that long ago.
Now that you have 2 Nano Bananas to choose from, you may be asking “which one do I use?”
I will give you Google’s answer from their documentation and I’ll add my perspective as well.
This model is designed for speed and efficiency. The model is optimized for high-volume, low-latency tasks and generates images at 1024px resolution.
My take is that most pictures that you are going to create (i.e., photorealistic, cartoon, cyberpunk-style, etc.) without text can be done with this model. I know it isn’t the newest (by a few months), but it is still REALLY good. It will take longer to use the other model, and the quality may be a few pixels better, literally, so your eye won’t even be able to perceive it.
Also, if you are doing a large quantity of pictures, you’ll probably want to use this model. Since it is cheaper to run, you have a much higher amount of images that Google will allow you to generate with it.
This model is designed for professional asset production and complex instructions. This model features real-world grounding using Google Search, a default “Thinking” process that refines composition prior to generation, and can generate images of up to 4K resolutions.
My take is that obviously, if you need 4K, then this is your only choice for now. Also, this model is much better with embedded text (i.e., infographics, timelines, marketing assets, annotated images, etc.)
This model is also able to combine more separate images into a single image.
Keep in mind that this model will likely be slower to generate images and will cost more.
If you still don’t know which model to pick, start with Nano Banana (not Pro) and see how well it does. If what you get isn’t good enough after follow-up prompts, then try Nano Banana Pro. Save the time and money.