Grok 4 Real Experience
0 Introduction
Elon Musk released Grok 4 at Beijing time noon on July 10. After my nap, right when the launch ended, I immediately used Grok 4 through an AI pooling platform.
Combining these days’ real experience and some valuable opinions online, sharing my real usage feelings.
1 Pros
1.1 Data source includes X platform
For Gemini, native Google Search enhancement elevates its capability. For Grok, X platform’s high-quality data makes it stand out among AI products.
X posts are unique to Grok. Other AIs connecting to internet mostly = connecting to web pages.
Overall, X platform has far more English high-quality data than Chinese high-quality data. X platform attracts many Chinese users mainly for NSFW content like daily competitions, plus lots of ads and random junk.
1.2 Agent LLM
Second LLM vendor natively providing Agent LLM [not counting Minimax, Tiangong and other agent products]. The Agent LLM I’m referring to is Chat and Agent combined, not separate. First was ChatGPT o3 model, third will be Gemini’s Agent Mode [reportedly coming in a few weeks, Ultra-exclusive]. Grok 4 is second.
This Agent LLM’s biggest use for me is fact-checking. Like when I collaborate with Claude on paper writing, after first draft of a paragraph and manual verification, I generally have ChatGPT o3 model verify the expression again.
1.3 Low censorship
Low censorship was already Grok 3’s biggest selling point.
Recently Grok got caught up in anti-Semitic, atomic bomb fireworks and other PR storms. Meanwhile, Western bloggers found Grok tends to reference Elon Musk’s views [Musk’s toy]. Hope Grok continues maintaining low censorship—sometimes politically incorrect statements are quite interesting.
Human world’s opinion texts are used to train Grok, meanwhile Grok’s reference materials also come from humans. Adding guardrails to LLMs is meaningless—censorship allowing only one voice actually breeds bias.
1.4 Grok Task
I was already looking forward to Grok 4 when Musk first announced July 4th release, but unfortunately it didn’t release as scheduled. Then I set a scheduled task in Grok to check daily if Grok 4 was released. The email notifications’ beautiful layout deeply attracted me—this experience is far superior to ChatGPT and Gemini.
2 Cons
2.1 Image recognition capability
Chinese image recognition is poor. English uncertain, but expected image recognition can’t match Gemini and other models.
2.2 Deep Research base
Initially thought Grok pooling site doesn’t offer Grok 4 Deep Research. After seeing Super Grok review content, realized Deep Research base model doesn’t support switching to Grok 4 yet.
2.3 Chinese experience lower than English experience
Yesterday saw an L Site post—Grok 4 isn’t bad actually, but I won’t use it. This comment caught my attention. Perhaps one reason for the Chinese vs English community reaction gap to Grok 4 is language. Though Grok 4 sometimes converts user Chinese questions to English before proceeding with tasks.
Whether to use Chinese or English for Grok 4 questions—depends entirely on context. If Chinese context works better, ask in Chinese. If English context works better, ask in English.
3 Summary
Grok 4 currently serves as a ChatGPT o3 model competitor on my local computer. Technical questions I generally ask Claude and Gemini. Fact-checking, news, etc. can consider Grok 4. Currently ChatGPT mainly uses o3 model for fact-checking.
But these are just generalities—comparing various top models is the norm. Like last night I asked Grok 4 a technical question—a US New York VPS I bought in April couldn’t connect to npm service. Grok 4 suggested changing VPS DNS settings. After following its advice, VPS could connect to npm normally.
Currently, no way I’ll pay full price for SuperGrok. $30/month not worth it. Pooling or freeloading SuperGrok around June 20’s last batch of edu discount accounts is optimal. The pooling site I use—Grok pools are usually idle, while Claude, ChatGPT, etc. get busy. Seems everyone’s not interested in Grok 4.
Before Grok 4, only one roommate commonly used Grok 3 model. This roommate had previously subscribed to ChatGPT and Claude memberships but has now switched entirely to freeloading. When chatting, one of his statements left a deep impression: “AI services are all pretty much the same.” This is indeed true—giving weak context to top models vs giving rich context to second-tier models—maybe second-tier solves your need while top-tier can’t. Besides, Grok 3 was also among top model ranks at that time.
Supplement
Updates to this Grok 4 article—see Flarum post—Grok 4 Experience Notes.
References
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