I don't understand why those who have an old ZC can't tell the difference. You don't even have to be smart to realize they're different plastic, if you've had both. I have 2 old plastic ZC's, and 5 new ones. They're definitely different, in sound AND feel, and it has nothing to do with how broken in they are. Out of the box, the old ones feel so much better. I can't say anything about the white ones, like Izovire has, but the black ones have definitely changed. I still have my original one from the pre orders, when they first came out, and I recently bought another from Modcuber (which came from Phil Yu at the Cubicle) who bought several of them, brand new. They originally came from Nats 2011, where Phil bought several. Modcuber bought 5 of them, sold me one and Dan (CBC) one, and is keeping the rest. They basically feel much much smoother, faster, and kind of rubbery, almost. When you squeeze them in your fingers, they feel much less sturdy than the recent ones. It's kind of like the difference between the Ling Yun v1 and v2. The v1 is the old plastic, and it never changed. The v2 is the new plastic. It's a slightly lighter black color (very hard to notice, but if you look at the new plastic in the light, you can sometimes see little rainbow looking spots, hard to explain) and looks like a graphite color, whereas the old plastic is solid, dark black. Old plastic feels much smoother, cuts corners with ease, and is just completely effortless solving, and very quiet. The new plastic has this catchy lock up, scratchy friction, and a very loud smack sound when the pieces hit each other. I wish I could let people try my cubes. My old ZC from when they first came out has been used for quite a while and feels broken in. When I bought a new (old) one from the Phil Yu batch (which were never used), I could tell it was brand new because there were no scratch marks inside, and it had that new cube feel, BUT compared to a new new ZC, it was still MUCH better, smoother, silent, and faster. It had more of a crispiness than my old old one because it was new and unused, but still much much less crispy than a new one. Even a new broken in one feels much more rough than the old ones brand new. I barely ever use the new old one because I don't want it to wear out. It's such a great cube.
The first time I realized they had changed, I had my original one for a little while, and I hardly ever used it because it was lubed with Maru lube and just wasn't that good (until I bought Lubix). Then, I bought another one from Lubix which felt completely different. It was much sturdier and very scratchy feeling. I remember thinking it was because it was Lubix modded, but I thought "It can't be THAT different just from a 48 point edge mod." So, I bought another one brand new from a regular store, and it felt exactly like the Lubix one. Still nothing like my original one. That was the first time I had realized they changed the plastic. Then I bought a few more, and finally, this old one from the Nats 2011 batch, and it felt just like my old one did when I first got it.
