Just a quick post about the first and only unbxoing on my Youtube channel, showcasing three Moyu cubes: a black Aolong, black Yulong, and colored translucent Yulong:
It’s been a long while since I ordered new 3x3s. Although a lot of new cubes have been released lately, and the few I’ve tried have no doubt impressed me, none have displaced the Zhanchi as king of all things 3×3 (for me). The two that have come close are Cyoubx’ Maru CX-3 and the Moyu Weilong, the older sibling of the Aolong. Both are interesting, but have their flaws. The Weilong is smooth but locky. The CX-3 performs well, but is hard to tension properly and is really square, with almost no beveling on the outer edges. A picky criticism, perhaps, but it does have an odd “hand-feel” because of it.
But then Moyu came out with the excellent (best as of this writing) Aosu 4×4 and a series of new 3x3s. The reviews of the Aolong made it sound like an incredible cube, with lots of fast cubers (including Feliks) adopting it as their main. So, I caved and bought a few new cubes.
Rumor was that the Yulong had great all-around performance. Nothing too fancy, just really good across the board. I think that’s accurate. The hand-feel is relatively square (but nothing like the CX-3), the cubies are bevelled (but not bubbly), and the corner cutting is good (on par with most other speedcubes). It’s smooth (like a worn in Zhanchi), with a slight sandy feel (like a Shuang Ren). It performed very well out of the box, and continues to. I ordered it in black and colored translucent, the latter just for fun. I dig translucent cubes, and am a proud owner of a very rare translucent Zhanchi. But this tinted one is very hard to use; the colors are nearly indistinguishable when any light shines through the cube. Fun novelty puzzle, nevertheless.
I had very high hopes for the Aolong, all of which were disappointed by my out-of-box experience with the puzzle. The cube shipped so loose as to be unstable and floppy during solves, a point on which I fixate in the video. I do remark in the video that the cube seems to have a lot of potential, and that slight tweaks in my solve style made a positive difference. Having now disassembled, lubed, tensioned, and worked in the cube a bit, I can say that it is as good as I had hoped — and far better than my unboxing would suggest. The performance is close to, if not as good as, a Zhanchi across most metrics and characteristics. I don’t enjoy the hand-feel as much, with the cubies a bit too bubbly for my liking. I find that I get my pinkies stuck between the cubies at times, and that I get occasional corner twists. That said it is an excellent cube, and one that gets better — and grows on me — the more I use it.
adventures in cubing 