u/NIMObunny

Oh my damn god this was the most painful thing I have ever done.

I was not gonna practice 3x3 until I realized for some reason before doing a solve if I relax and take a deep breath and slowing my heart beat improves "look ahead". It doesn't really improve anything else but maybe my eyes are relaxed? I don't know if this is scientifically proven but it improved for me at least.

So I locked the f*ck in for a whole 6 god damn hours and just barely managed to get sub 12 ao1000

Also finally got a sub 7 single in the process and got 2 sub 10 ao5 too(also my pb ao5 is 9.71 but it got deleted somehow while moving it from my phone to my ipad but at least I still have a sub 10 ao5 on the screenshot😁)

This took way too long and my entire body and fingers are aching from sitting and cubing too long💀

Intro➡️ When I looked up about this cube there was almost no video or info about it. And also since this cube is limited to 800 in the world and it’s only sold in like 2 Chinese platforms it is really hard to find anything about it. By now I think there are like 1~2 videos but still very limited in information about it. Also unfortunately by the time I’m posting this it’s probably already sold out by the vin official store and only can be bought in other stores that still have it. So since it’s pointless of recommending ‘What you should do’, I’ll just say ‘What it is’.

Reason I bought it➡️ First, I bought this cube cuz I main only 2 events(3x3 & 4x4) and 4x4s don’t have many options on the market right now compared to 3x3 so just wanted a special 3x3 for collection. More specifically wanted a 3x3 cube that is unique and has good enough performance to do casual timed solves every so often even though it’s not main level good. And since I never had a stickered cube before I thought might as well try one on a limited edition one.

Store & Price➡️ I bought the cube on taobao(also taobao can be a really good option for those living near in china. For example the normal vin nova is 40$ while in taobao it’s 25$ and it isn’t a scam but the price can differ depending on your area.) The 2 stores that official vin sold the limited edition was Taobao and JD.com if you’re wondering. And bought it at 30$ including shipping! Probably the cheapest limited edition cube of this kind. It also took about a week to arrive.

Box & accessories➡️ the box looks sick with the shiny purple and probably one of the best boxes I’ve seen. It came with a sleek purple identity card and came in a different colored case than normal. The original vin 3 has either red or black case but this one was transparent purple which was cool but the case itself isn’t really the best to use since it feels a bit cheap and not comfortable to open. Still looks very cool as display though. It also came with stickers(which I’ll talk more about later), 2 adjustment tools also with a different color(purple instead of black or red), cube guide, adjustment guide and a very nice looking bag which was also grey instead of the normal black.

First impressions➡️ Now for the cube and have so many things to talk about. Before I opened the cube I actually didn’t have much high hopes cuz as I said I bought this as a collection and not a main. And also heard vin has a lot of quality control issues. OOTB the cube was pretty sandy but not in a bad way and was really enjoyable. The plastic felt pretty high quality and haven’t had any problems with the cube itself since(maybe I got lucky with the qc? Who knows). But since this cube’s texture is made for stickers it was really slippery in my hands. And now is where the stickers come in! IT IS STRAIGHT UP STUPIDNESS!! Never have I ever seen such a terrible sticker in my life! No wonder why people say vin’s qc is bad. It literally looks like someone at vin drew the cutout by hand while drunk. The center is a clear oval and the edges are not symmetrical at all. And the corners just needed to be a square and they still somehow managed to do it wrong! But since I had no other option I used it anyway. But when I did one side all the stickiness was gone on the transport foil and had to use tweezers. But that didn’t matter either cuz the sticker was so bad it came off so I just did it by hand. And after putting it all on only the orange side all fell off so used my own double sided tape to re-sticker it again.

CUBE!➡️ Finally after getting everything ready I tried setting up the cube. As those might already know this cube doesn’t have indicators on the DAS and need to determine it by clicks. But the more confusing part is that the manual is just wrong. It says turn left to adjust the spring compression to adjust the flexibility but by turning left it adjusts the speed and not the flexibility. And turning right actually adjusts the flexibility. But since it might still be confusing even after I say this, if you have a vin just experiment everything👍 My setting is flexibility on 5/8 and speed on 3/8 with slow lube(gan lube 3) in the tracks and gan lube 1 on pieces. This cube is still very fast on the slowest setting so slow lube is definitely needed. Also the CFRS system is very over complicated and it’s just piece magnet adjustment(2 options: strong or weak). I set it on weak cuz I prefer weak piece mags than strong. Up until this point I thought the cube was the nova version** BUT IT’S NOT**! When I took out the edge piece it didn’t have any edge magnets so it was actually the** race**r version. But luckily I recently bought 3x1mm mags and it fit perfectly😊 Although the DAS is still dyed purple so don’t know if it’s maglev or spring. Overall the cube itself is very good. Don’t think it’s meant to be used in flexible settings and better on tighter settings which needs more accurate turning but still fine to use. It kind of feels like a v9 in the tracks with v100 pieces on the outer. Which also means it definitely has main potential. But there’s one major problem that makes this cube un-mainable: Stickers. After doing some timed solves the stickers actually make solves so much harder. I avg around 12~13sec but avg about 14~15sec on this cube no matter how hard I try. My best time was like 10.7 which isn’t even sub 10. It definitely feels a lot harder to look ahead during f2l and much harder to recognize oll and plls. This might just be me but that’s what I felt.

Final thoughts➡️ Definitely a really solid cube and would definitely make the cube a lot better for collection if I change the stickers to gan stickers but I’ll think about that for now. For performance it’s very good but considering its price is in the same range as the v100, v9 and even 8bc v11 it’s probably not the best for the price. It’s definitely not a bad cube but I mean there are better options available. Do I regret buying it? No. Cuz it was my first ever transparent stickered cube which makes it a lot different than my other cubes and will probably use it a lot for casual solving since it’s so unique and has actually not bad performance. Do I recommend it? Also no. Cuz although it’s a really cheap limited edition cube you can buy if you have tried stickered cubes before it just doesn’t seem different enough to buy it. Unless you really really like the color purple and have spare gan stickers and want to risk of getting bad qc then I guess it’s an option. But for me I’d prefer stickerless colored internal cubes.

TLDR👉 A very affordable limited edition cube with very cool accessories. Solid in performance but if only considering performance there are better options. Very fast and sandy OOTB. Pretty hard to set up but still doable. VERY HORRIBLE STICKERS! A cube I don’t regret buying(cuz my goal was to get a cube that is unique but has good enough performance) but probably wouldn’t recommend for others especially for those who already tried stickered cubes.

Made the best v11 I could think of imo

My magnets arrived(somehow faster than the cubes I ordered💀) and after adding the 3x1 n52 mags on the corner mags(already had 3x2 n40 mags) it feels so much better than before. A bit bouncy feeling in a good way and much better m slices for some reason which was my one problem about the v11 which is now unexpectedly solved😊 Haven’t done a lot of solves yet so don’t know if I’ll switch mains back to the v11 but definitely has potential👍

Also I had my v11 se corner mags further deep and used those for the mod instead of the original corner and the dragon v11 with the se corner swap looks sick😎

Plus a cherry on top with the picube center cap🍒

Turns out the custom logo buff is real(10.07)! I custom made my new logo on my v9 and changed just a bit on my settings on the cube and holy is it good👍 Hopefully sub 10 soon😊

What do y’all think of my custom logo? Thought of doing this after my picube logo broke off. Used the most similar material I can think of and used double sided tape. Probably could have made a better logo design but this was my first time doing it as a test and might make a different version in the future😊

So first of all before I even talk about anything you need to remember that this cube is literally like 15$. A cube that has 20m ballcore and maglev is 15$! It’s literally insane for the price. But because of that there are also problems which I’ll talk about later.

First is just about the cube. The cube has 32 magnets in the ball core but in reality it’s just a stronger 20m bc cuz there’s just 2 magnets in the edges instead of one. And of course there are corner and edge magnets and also maglev. Which is a total of 112 magnets in the cube. And there are holes in the feet of the corners(in the picture) so technically you can add even more if you want. The cube is also exactly 55mm slightly bigger than the v100 and slightly smaller than v11(since v100 is like 54.5 and v11 is 55.5) and also has a glossy finish with a standard dual adjustment system with screws.

Enough about the cube and on to the actual performance. I’ll be honest here the cube is just bad. I bought this cube thinking it was going to be my main but it’s just not what I was expecting. I bought this thinking it was a very fast cube with strong auto alignment. And it is fast and has strong auto alignment but there was one thing I didn’t think about. QUALITY! To be more specific the quality is just so cheap. It feels like Moretry used all the budget on the features(magnets) and had no money to make the plastic of the cube. It’s something like the qiyi warrior where they try to make a cheap cube packed with features but the cube is still bad. Good cubes at this price range is the guhong pro+ and rs3m v5 and I have both. And seeing videos I thought it would be similar to the 2 but it’s sooooooooo different. If you thought the guhong and rs3mv5 was cheap quality this has like 10 times cheaper feeling. I feel like only hardware wise if you took out the magnets it will be like a cube from your local store. But the more weird part is that I can’t find a specific reason why this cube is so bad other than the plastic quality. The corner cutting is fine(forward and reverse) and the cube is not too tight or too flexible. But the plastics keep catching the inside and I feel like the only reason is just the plastic. And personally I’d say I turn pretty accurately since I have no issues using gan cubes but on this cube I can’t execute my algorithms well at all. I also tried lubes but it doesn’t change anything. Tried tensioning all of the settings but didn’t work out.

Also there are black caps which is unique but unfortunately my black caps arrived with the wrong amount(3 edges and 5 corners) so I can’t make much of an opinion here but all I know is that the black caps are a more tighter fit so you need a tool(knife) to remove them.

Final thoughts(TLDR): The cube has the features that I was thinking about(very fast, strong auto alignment) but the quality is just too bad to use. I wish companies like qiyi or moretry would care more about the actual plastic and not only on features. Cuz if you think about it qiyi and moretry usually makes budget cubes which is mostly for beginners and beginners don’t need that many features in a cube. So instead make the hardware better so people can at least enjoy turning the cube. Overall this was a pretty big disappointment at least for me. Don’t know how others will think about this cube but for me it’s a NO. If you’re thinking about buying a budget cube just buy the guhong or rs3v5 and if you want stronger alignment just glue edge magnets in the guhong.

Got a LL skip on the single(finally broke sub 8) and got the craziest last scramble and preserved 2 f2ls some how(finally broke sub 11 and in the 10s now)

Cube: dragon v11

LL skip

For those who might be(probably not) curious about my name. And also my cube collection while I’m at it cuz why not👍