Anyways, today we're looking at a very popular and ubiquitous cube - the Moyu Weilong GTS. This cube took the market by storm when it was released back in April, and it seems that in just the four short months since, nearly every cuber has gotten one and a significant portion have switched to it as their main.
Now, you may be thinking, "there are already hundreds of GTS reviews out there, all of which say the same thing. Why do we need another?" Well, actually, the main reason I'm doing this review is less to add another review but to introduce a baseline for all of my upcoming reviews - every new cube should be compared to the dominant force on the market, and right now that's the GTS.
Background Info
The Weilong GTS is the latest in a long, long line of Moyu 3x3s, and the first since 2014's Weilong v2 to bring back the Weilong name. Moyu's learned a lot over the years - internal design with the Weilongs and Aolongs, squared corners with the Meiying, corner cutting with the Yuexiao - as well as learned some valuable lessons on how not to design a cube (Ahem Dianma). With the Weilong GTS, Moyu aims to brings all of it together in one unbeatable cube - hence, the GTS name.
It costs $17 from most US sellers - a dollar more expensive than even the Yuexiao and other similarly classed cubes. While it's not exactly prohibitively expensive to most cubers, it is not a cheap cube.
Some have noted that the Weilong GTS brings back the Weilong name, but feels nothing like a Weilong. Why did they decide to use such an old name? My guess is as good as yours, but I've heard some speculation that Moyu wants this cube to do the same thing to the market that the original Weilong did.
It costs $17 from most US sellers - a dollar more expensive than even the Yuexiao and other similarly classed cubes. While it's not exactly prohibitively expensive to most cubers, it is not a cheap cube.
Some have noted that the Weilong GTS brings back the Weilong name, but feels nothing like a Weilong. Why did they decide to use such an old name? My guess is as good as yours, but I've heard some speculation that Moyu wants this cube to do the same thing to the market that the original Weilong did.
Look and feel
The stickers are standard Moyu shades, which resemble half-brights. Unfortunately, I've heard many complaints that the stickers are awful, and have experienced the same issues myself - the vinyl is cut rather awfully so the white backing on the green, orange, and red stickers show through around the edges, the colored vinyl peels up from the backing, and most unfortunately of all, practically any exposure to sunlight (or, I suspect, any strong UV light) will turn the orange stickers nearly indistinguishable from the red. The only problem I haven't experienced is that the stickers apparently chip very easily, but I try to keep my fingernails short when cubing so some others may have issues.
The cube itself weighs a fairly light 81.5 grams but still feels nice and solid. It makes a high pitched clacky sound which I have said I didn't like before, but I've come around to it.
Setup
I have five GTS's, but I will be focusing mainly on my current main - a full black (black internals). This cube has been lubed with weight 3 on the core and a moderate amount of weight 1 on the pieces, and is kept at evened out factory tensions. I've done approximately 4500 solves on it in the 3 months or so I've had it.
One thing to note: I've found that most GTS's feel very similar regardless of setup, and the main difference is the speed. My slow GTS's practically have the exact same turning feel as the fast ones.
Turning
The GTS's speed varies quite heavily based on setup. Out of the box, it comes at a speed that I consider moderate (though I had several that were quite slow) but most people consider very fast, almost uncontrollable. I've been able to get it both much faster than stock, as is the case with my main GTS, as well as much slower, as is the case with the blue one as well as the Cubicle Premium. So about the speed, I can say that it has the potential to be a very fast cube, and it's up to the user to tune it to the speed they like.
The turning itself is a bit trickier to describe - if you just turn one face, it's actually very smooth, with just a little bump when the cubies cross each other. However, make no mistake, this is not a "smooth" cube. There's a bit of a clack when you go from one move to another, say, something like R' U, unlike an actual smooth cube like the Gans 356S which just flows into moves. The effect of this is that if you string multiple moves together in quick succession, as you would in a trigger or an alg, the cube has a very distinctive texture that, for a lack of a better word, I'm going to have to describe as crunchy. (For reference, I called the GTS "crisp" in my first impressions.
What else? Well, it's unstable - it loves to turn in your hand slightly even if you don't try to turn it. This does get better when you get used to the cube. It also flexes a lot if it does lock up. Luckily,that doesn't happen often - the GTS seems to have escaped the curse of the squared corners that the Yuexiao, the Gans 356 v1, and a some other squared corner cubes have, where the corners catch on the centers.
The turning itself is a bit trickier to describe - if you just turn one face, it's actually very smooth, with just a little bump when the cubies cross each other. However, make no mistake, this is not a "smooth" cube. There's a bit of a clack when you go from one move to another, say, something like R' U, unlike an actual smooth cube like the Gans 356S which just flows into moves. The effect of this is that if you string multiple moves together in quick succession, as you would in a trigger or an alg, the cube has a very distinctive texture that, for a lack of a better word, I'm going to have to describe as crunchy. (For reference, I called the GTS "crisp" in my first impressions.
What else? Well, it's unstable - it loves to turn in your hand slightly even if you don't try to turn it. This does get better when you get used to the cube. It also flexes a lot if it does lock up. Luckily,that doesn't happen often - the GTS seems to have escaped the curse of the squared corners that the Yuexiao, the Gans 356 v1, and a some other squared corner cubes have, where the corners catch on the centers.
Corner Cutting
Max corner cutting: ~52 degrees (53 degrees)
Effective corner cutting: ~46 degrees
Max reverse cutting: ~35 degrees (37 degrees)
Effective reverse cutting: ~31 degrees
To be clear, the corner cutting does depend on the tensions, though it does seem unless your tensions are excessively tight, you can expect to be within a few degrees of my given values. I do have a GTS that can full cut, values of which are in parentheses, but it's a bit too loose for me.
Anyways, as we'd expect from the Moyu flagship cube, corner cutting is very impressive. It has the best effective cutting (how far it can cut without excessive effort) out of all of the cubes I own, and some of the best reverse cutting overall, especially at the looser tensions I mentioned.
Corner cutting isn't that satisfying, at least not for me. It feels a bit too "crunchy" once again for the lack of a better word. Reverse cutting, however, is some of the best I've felt - cuts glide smoothly into place up to just short of 30 degrees, unlike many other cubes which catch then snap. (To see the difference, watch this video.)
Very impressive overall. Well befitting of a GTS name.
Anti-pop and anti-corner twist
Another one of the cube's strong points. Anti-pop is excellent on any reasonable tensions - at moderate to tight tensions, it's very difficult to even disassemble the cube by hand. (Be warned, I have heard of people breaking corner stalks by trying to force a disassembly). I have not and imagine I will not ever pop this cube.
Anti-corner twist really surprised me. Cubes like the Yuexiao had squared corners as well and in fact the corners on the Yuexiao are sharper than the corners on the GTS. Yet, somehow I've managed to twist the Yuexiao quite often during a certain G perm, but never on the GTS. In fact, the GTS's corners are genuinely hard to twist by hand. I've only ever corner twisted it once, and that was almost entirely a fluke.
Another excellent. This cube is rocking it.
Internals
As I mentioned, this cube is difficult to disassemble at most tensions. If you're ever feeling unsure, it's always better to take some time to loosen a center than to risk breaking your cube.
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| Blue for contrast |
It's actually a fairly simple internal design. There's one main track running around the cube, and that's the one created by the flange on the center piece. Most of the other features are flat and smooth.
There's the typical Moyu blue ribbed core, as also seen on the Yuexiao.
The edge piece. A rather simple design compared to the Thunderclaps and Qinghongs I've looked at recently. This one just has one groove cut into it for the flange on the centers, as well as the typical torpedo most cubes come with nowadays. The side is entirely flat and has no bumps.
The torpedo on this cube is big, wide, and flat. This, as well as one other factor, are what make the cube so hard to pop: in order to pop a torpedoed cube, the edge piece so that the torpedo clears the corner foot. On the GTS, the torpedo is wider which makes it harder to clear the foot, and the flange on the center makes it harder to twist the edge since a groove for the flange isn't cut into the side.
Clever design.
The corner piece. Another simple design, the corner itself drops off so sharply to the stalk in order to clear the flange on the center. As I mentioned, this cube's corners are capped, and in fact the squared corner is only the cap. The corner piece itself isn't squared at all.
I suppose this means if you didn't like the squared corners, it's very easy to sand the squared portion off.
Again, the stalk is very thin and some have complained that their stalks have broken.
And one last thing, I hope Moyu knows what they're doing with the grooves on the friction surfaces. They didn't seem to help much with the Gans cubes and love accumulating gunk inside, and in fact I've had to clean out gunk from my GTS corners several times.
This actually isn't so special, but it impressed me a lot coming back from my hiatus. A lot of popular cubes back when I used to cube loved dropping their caps. Some, like Dayans or Alphas, could drop a cap when the cube was dropped, but some, such as Marus or the Type FII, could sometimes just drop caps unprovoked. (Funnily enough Maru hasn't fixed this issue with the CX3 - see this video.)
The GTS's cap design has both an outer and inner friction fit. What's more, they're both molded perfectly. That means no dropped caps at all, not even when you drop the cube, but it's not hard to pry off a cap either. I think a lot of people take this for granted, particularly if they're newer cubers who weren't around in the days of the FII, but this saves so much headache and takes away the hassle from stuffing paper or lube into the core.
Conclusions
Objective score: 10/10
Flawless cube. Corner cutting is amazing. Anti-pop and anti-corner twist are the best I've ever seen in a cube.
There really isn't much to be said about this.
Subjective score: 8.5/10
Oh man, did this cube come close to earning a perfect score here. I love a lot about this cube, and simply don't mind most of the other things.
Unfortunately, I don't like the crunchy feeling - I merely tolerate it. I wish it had either a smooth and blocky feeling or a clicky feeling like either the Aolong GT or the Thunderclap. I actually like those feelings, and if they were on this cube it would have have been a perfect cube.
Let's get into the finale.
You should buy this cube if:
- You're a speedcuber (lol)
- No seriously, I think this is a cube that every cuber should own, or at least try. While it does have a feel that not everyone would love, it's easily one of the most technically advanced cubes on the market and fixes a lot of the little issues like catching on previous flagships like the Yuexiao.
You should not buy this cube if:
- You can't afford the relatively steep $17 price tag
Yeah, this review came out sounding very positive. But my feelings about the GTS have gone from "eh" to "OMG it's amazing", so I'm not particularly surprised.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this review and weren't annoyed by 2200 words of effusive praise. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for the next one!
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