Gemma-4-E2B-IT seems to be as good or better than Qwen3.5-4B while having massively shorter reasoning times on average

Reddit r/LocalLLaMA / 4/3/2026

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Key Points

  • The article (via a Reddit post) claims that the Gemma-4-E2B-IT model performs about as well as or better than Qwen3.5-4B on reported tasks.
  • It highlights that Gemma-4-E2B-IT has much shorter average “reasoning times,” implying faster inference or reduced latency for similar quality.
  • The comparison is presented as a practical observation for Local LLaMA / on-device or self-hosted use cases rather than an official benchmark release.
  • The post functions as an early signal that Gemma-4-E2B-IT may offer a better speed–quality tradeoff than the referenced alternative small model.