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Last updated Nov 13, 2026

Eight Hands-On Tests, Reviewed: 4 Positive, 4 Mixed — Qwen4-Max's First Report Card

Published Nov 13, 2026 · Last updated Nov 13, 2026

On November 12, AI First Look collected eight hands-on tests and comments posted between November 7 and 12, assembling Qwen4-Max-Preview's first report card: 4 positive, 4 mixed, 0 negative. "No negative reviews" is true — and so is "half the testers kept reservations." Here is the itemised version.

The four positives: complete artifacts in one shot

Praise clustered on one-shot creation: a 3D solar system and a neon puzzle game built in Qoder looked and played well; and one coding task matched Qwen3.8-Max's result — 20 of 20 tests passed — while cutting the time from about 17 minutes to about 2.5. Same quality, roughly 7x faster: that is the single most substantive data point in the roundup.

The four mixed verdicts: fast is not the same as best

The reservations are just as concrete. In a T-Rex game test, Qwen4-Max finished faster than Claude Fable 5.2 and Gemini 4 Carbon, yet the tester still rated Fable 5.2 best overall. A Hacker News user found it slightly slower than GPT-6.1 Terra. Winning individual races, in this sample, does not equal winning the championship.

How to read this report card

The eight samples come from different testers, entry points and tasks, with no shared rubric — they cannot honestly be averaged into a score. But the directional signal is clear: building apps and games from scratch is its home turf, some coding tasks show an order-of-magnitude speed edge, and the top rivals' overall experience remains unbeaten so far.

Our take: "4 positive, 4 mixed, 0 negative" is the fairest one-line summary available. The highlights are real and worth your time; any "new king" narrative is not. Put it on your shortlist and cast your own vote with your own tasks.

Reference source: this article is an original rewrite produced by this site; facts and figures were checked against AI First Look(2026-11-12)

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