Gans has released their new lighter, faster and stronger flagship 3x3, the Gans Air. Can the Air fix the problems of the previous v2, lets find out in this full review
Hello guys its me CriticalCubing and today we are going to see what the new Gans Air has to offer and how it fares against its predessor the Gans 356s v2
The gans air costs roughly 24$ which places it quite high up in the market, making some people sad as its out of their budget
Aesthetically speaking, the cube looks beautiful with the half bright Gan shades. The size of the cube hasn't been changed and its still 56mm
The beauty of this cube lies in its stability and weight. Gan engineers haven't sacrificed anything to make the cube light, although I can definitely see some upgrades. The gan air weights roughly 70 grams.
The most noticeable upgrade is the GES spring mechanism which is an all in one spring nut combo which makes tensioning easier
The GES spring is color coded according to the elasticity of the spring with red being the most rigid and purple being the softest. Red makes the cube tight whereas purple keeps it relatively loose
Due to this system, you can make the cube feel however you want, smooth, fast, stable etc. Personally for me, I like my air with the orange springs as its an middle ground between stable, fast and smooth
Applying heavier lube to the pieces also makes it smooth, and is advisable if you are applying lighter springs like the yellow
The master edition only gives you 3 springs, the red, orange and yellow. The grand master edition gives you all the springs like green, blue, purple
The pieces for the air have been changed and the tracks have been flattened out. Due to the lack of tracks, it makes the cube smoother
Apart from that, the torpedo in the edge has been redesigned to make it more anti pop. Rest pretty much is the same. Tensioning is easier now as you just insert the spring and are done
If the current spring doesn't suit you, try another one. Just try to get the spring and the screw flat, so there is no bump or hole on the surface. The core is also transparent now instead of white in the previous version
So far so good, but how is the air when it comes to performance?
The turning of the air isn't that different than the turning of the v2. The air still has the smooth feeling of the v2, but because of the lack of tracks, the air feels more smoother
Depending on what spring you are using, there can be small catches however that can be easily fixed by applying heavy tension spring like orange or red. The air also features fast turning, faster than the v2 out of the box
I applied 50k to make it more controllable for myself. Corner cutting is what you would expect from Gans cubes. More than 45 degrees for normal corner cutting and a little over line to line for reverse corner cutting
However there are some degrees that it can't cut normally and requires force otherwise. The air has improved reverse corner cutting, than the v2. Corner twisting took me off guard as I have never twisted a corner
I have been using it for 3 weeks now, and never had a corner twist till now. I have changed springs too from colorless to yellow, yellow to red and red to orange yet no corner twists. Popping is non existent
The air takes pride in its stablity and from my tests, the air does feel more stable than my v2. My v2 can misalign the layers and the probablity of layers misaligning on the air is low. However if you are an accurate turner, then layers seldom misalign
One minor flaw of the GES spring system would be that the springs can get hammed inside and won't come out by normal means. For this, I tried out what DavesTumpet mentioned and finally got the spring out without breaking it
Another thing which I did to get the jammed spring out is to completely disassemble the cube and take out the other springs. Now that the other springs are not into play, you can easily get the spring out with your fingers by twisting gently
My only criticism would be that I don't like the tensioning and the spring system. It makes setting up the cube complex by giving you more variety and options and requires more thinking as to what I want to use
Previously, I would just tighten lube and done. Less than 30 seconds. Now I take like a minute to just change the springs, try it out, and then change again and there is no perfect spring for me. Previously on the v2, I did had perfect tensions which suited me
Others and new cubers will definitely like having so many options to make it feel how they want to, but this spring mechanism is not for me. I like simple things and like to simplify
and as a reason this complex change springs, apply new one if you don't like just doesn't suit me. Not saying that the spring system is bad. Its revolutionary but just not for me. I liked the previous v2 spring change system more
In a nutshell, the air is an upgrade from the previous 356s v2 and if you like Gans cubes and use it as your main, then you should get the Air
This is the best Gan cube yet and I definitely enjoy using it. For now, I am not sure if I will be using it as my main but I do use it quite frequently and I would recommend it
Thank you to Mr.Gan and the Gans company for sending this cube to me for testing and thank you to you guys for watching this video. Please leave a like and do comment what could should I compare with the Gan Air
Thank you for watching and I will see you next time. Take care guys and bye.