simontiger
Member
YJ has produced great budget cubes, and great cubes in general. Like literally, like these days (at least for the MGC line), they've just been smashing the best cubes out of the water for every single release. Like, just look at their 6x6. Everyone uses it.
But there's one aspect of cubes YJ haven't conquered yet: durability. I am a pretty clumsy person, and yet every single cube I've dropped was fine afterwards. Except for YJ cubes. One time I dropped their 7x7 and I noticed a discoloration. Now I don't know how severe this issue is, this is the only time I dropped a cube that hard, but it does get worse. My main 5x5 is also from YJ, and I noticed it was...like...SIGNIFICANTLY faster than my other YJ cubes. I thought that was a good thing at first, but then I noticed it felt loose. Turned out, the reason it was so fast was because it was really loose. So you might think "why don't I just tighten it?". And I would have done that, if the following issue wasn't present: for one of the sides (white in particular), if I do a turn, the screw actually turns along with it sometimes. And that was enough to cause around three pops because the white side was completely unscrewed. I don't know if this is ACTUALLY the reason I got those three pops, it might have been something like a core strip, but still, that's pretty alarming.
Not to mention this was not the only issue I had. I also noticed a random mark on one of the yellow edges. And the mark wasn't just the same color as that edge piece, it was BLACK. Like, how alarming is that.
And the worst thing of all, their square-1. They're the only reason I now own three square-1s (two of them broken). I tried to disassemble it once. It broke. So I got a new one, and I wanted to replace the caps with black ones, which is far more practical of a thing than taking it apart. It was really hard, and when the cap finally did come off, it broke again. I thought for a second I could just get a third one, but I'm sure I will think of something even more mundane and it will still break. I will now use my X-Man Volt instead, which is FAR WORSE in turning, but at least it will not break.
For the 5x5 and 7x7, I'll keep using them since the issues I had with them are more minor, but I will probably get some backup cubes like e.g. the Valk 5M and the Hays 7M, just in case I ever want to compete in the events and my MGCs are not comp legal.
But there's one aspect of cubes YJ haven't conquered yet: durability. I am a pretty clumsy person, and yet every single cube I've dropped was fine afterwards. Except for YJ cubes. One time I dropped their 7x7 and I noticed a discoloration. Now I don't know how severe this issue is, this is the only time I dropped a cube that hard, but it does get worse. My main 5x5 is also from YJ, and I noticed it was...like...SIGNIFICANTLY faster than my other YJ cubes. I thought that was a good thing at first, but then I noticed it felt loose. Turned out, the reason it was so fast was because it was really loose. So you might think "why don't I just tighten it?". And I would have done that, if the following issue wasn't present: for one of the sides (white in particular), if I do a turn, the screw actually turns along with it sometimes. And that was enough to cause around three pops because the white side was completely unscrewed. I don't know if this is ACTUALLY the reason I got those three pops, it might have been something like a core strip, but still, that's pretty alarming.
Not to mention this was not the only issue I had. I also noticed a random mark on one of the yellow edges. And the mark wasn't just the same color as that edge piece, it was BLACK. Like, how alarming is that.
And the worst thing of all, their square-1. They're the only reason I now own three square-1s (two of them broken). I tried to disassemble it once. It broke. So I got a new one, and I wanted to replace the caps with black ones, which is far more practical of a thing than taking it apart. It was really hard, and when the cap finally did come off, it broke again. I thought for a second I could just get a third one, but I'm sure I will think of something even more mundane and it will still break. I will now use my X-Man Volt instead, which is FAR WORSE in turning, but at least it will not break.
For the 5x5 and 7x7, I'll keep using them since the issues I had with them are more minor, but I will probably get some backup cubes like e.g. the Valk 5M and the Hays 7M, just in case I ever want to compete in the events and my MGCs are not comp legal.
