The gist of it is that to a lot of cubers who aren't as deeply involved in the cubing community, or to a lot of new cubers, Dayan is often one of the most prominent brands. This is for good reason too: Dayan dominated the entire industry back in the early 2010s, and even now the Zhanchi is still one of the most famous speedcubes and ubiquitous among all in the community.
The problem now, though, is that Dayan is often one of the first names to be recommended to a new cuber. I've seen countless Youtube comments, Facebook posts, and the odd Reddit comment or so that pushes the GuHong or the Zhanchi as the top of the line speedcube, usually because the poster has simply never heard of cubes from MoYu, QiYi, GAN, or YuXin. This post was inspired, in fact, by a certain Reddit user who not only recommended the Dayan Guhong/Zhanchi, but insisted that they are still relevant and still good cubes by today's standards.
So, I'm going to try to firmly establish today what place Dayan has in today's market. I'll be comparing the original Zhanchi, widely agreed on as the last "good" Dayan cube, and a YuXin Little Magic M, a popular contemporary budget speedcube.
The Cubes
The Dayan Zhanchi is the veteran of the scene, arguably the most famous speedcube ever released. Released in 2011, it had a number of features new for the time, including Dayan's signature (and uncommon at the time) rounded geometry, a new ridge and corresponding groove on the edge never seen before, and the torpedoes that would go on to become an industry standard. The specific cube in question today is a relatively new Zhanchi, probably produced in 2015.
It's worth mentioning that in 2013, Dayan switched to a new blend of plastic and supposedly, the old, softer plastic feels much better to some. However, having a number of both old and new plastic Zhanchis, to me the old plastic does not make enough of a difference to warrant a more positive review. Besides, new cubers would only have the option to buy a new plastic Zhanchi in this day and age.
The YuXin Little Magic is a very contemporary cube, having only been released in August 2017. It's not a revolutionary cube the same way the Zhanchi was - it's a cube sitting squarely in the ultrabudget end of the market, retailing for only $5. Despite that, it has gained a lot of popularity as one of the top choices for anyone looking for a more affordable cube, and as a result it's often recommended alongside the MF3RS2 to beginners.
The YLM is in its stock setup, and the Zhanchi has been lightly set up with an evening of the tensions and Weight 3 lubricant.
Externals
It's quite easy to tell which cube is modern and which one is old. The design of cubes has changed vastly since the age of the Zhanchi - gone are the square stickers and square pieces, and in its place edges and centers have become very rounded, with rounded stickers fitted to the pieces. The hole at the intersection of a corner, a center, and two edges, now known as a Florian hole, has grown much larger for the sake of corner cutting. It's of note that for a time after the Zhanchi, speedcubes rounded the corners as well, and in fact they still are rounded internally. However, by keeping just the outside surface as a square, cube manufacturers found that they could reduce corner twisting without sacrificing corner cutting, so almost all modern speedcubes are made this way.
The size of most modern speedcubes has decreased to 56mm, as opposed to the 57mm of the Zhanchi. Weight has remained roughly in the same ballpark, with the Zhanchi at 88 grams and the Little Magic at 74, but better molding techniques and thicker walls means the Little Magic feels just a bit more sturdy and durable.
Finally, most modern cubes have moved to full or half-bright stickers, making use of extremely vibrant, fluorescent colors. The Zhanchi's stock stickers are quite dark and dull in comparison, though finding a modern sticker scheme isn't as much of a problem.
Finally, most modern cubes have moved to full or half-bright stickers, making use of extremely vibrant, fluorescent colors. The Zhanchi's stock stickers are quite dark and dull in comparison, though finding a modern sticker scheme isn't as much of a problem.
Turning
Turning is something largely down to personal preference, and there is a vast variety of different turning cubes out there for people to try. The YLM has medium weight, smooth, flowy turning with a little bit of a tactile click during the transition between two different turns. I know Zhanchis to have a large variety of possible turning feelings depending on how you set them up, but this particular Zhanchi, with a rather ordinary setup, has heavier, more blocky turning. Where turning each layer of the YLM feels like turning a cohesive whole, the Zhanchi feels more like turning 8 separate cubies around the center.
Now, the turning feel of older cubes can be a redeeming factor if no modern cubes quite match them. The Alpha V was an extraordinarily clicky, tactile feeling cube with no equal today; the ShuangRen was far sandier than any cube before or after it, due to its unique use of matte plastic for the inside surfaces. However, the Zhanchi is rather weak in that regard: while some claim to have found no real replacement for a Zhanchi's feeling, I find that many modern cubes can emulate the many ways to set up a Zhanchi. The Mars S feels rather similar to this particular Zhanchi; the Thunderclap feels similar to the light, fast, and clicky Zhanchi that was my main for many years.
Corner Cutting
Here, we can get into some things that are more concrete. Corner cutting is widely known as one of the biggest improvements to have been made to cubes since the time of the Zhanchi, and is luckily measurable by number.
The YLM, being a budget cube, doesn't quite achieve full cutting out of the box: it does 52 degrees forward, and 36 degrees reverse, a 2 degree deadzone. This is rather typical of the ultrabudgets, and is pretty much the only concrete thing separating them from the flagships that can do full cutting out of the box.
The Zhanchi, on the other hand, on my average tensions does just 38 degrees of forward cutting, a bit beyond the "line to line" that was the benchmark back in the day. Any further and a nasty lockup would occur as a result. Now, I do know that it is possible to get better corner cutting out of it by loosening tensions, but that reduces pop resistance as a tradeoff.
The reverse cutting on the Zhanchi actually impressed me: 31 degrees. Remember, most non-Dayan cubes back then could not even reverse cut 5. It doesn't quite hold a torch to the 34-36 degrees of modern cubes, but it isn't that far off either.
However, there's a problem.
The thing that stunned me most about modern cubes when I got back into the scene in early 2016 was just how effortless reverse cutting was. Due to the internal rounded surfaces of the corners as well as the rounded centers, reverse cuts practically glide into place, with a smooth sliding of the corner around the outside of the center.
This is not the case with the Zhanchi. There's no smooth incline to ease the backward slide of the corner off the center, or the edge on the other side, so both pairs of pieces end up hanging up on each other. It takes quite a bit of force to overcome that, and when you finally do, there's a very strong snap of the corner overcoming the center and slamming down on its own layer.
Why does this matter? Well, 1. it feels awful, and 2. not being able to smoothly slide means reverse cuts take much more force. This has actually affected my solves - anytime I perform R'U', I rely on reverse cutting, and I found that my fingers were slipping up quite a lot more simply because I wasn't putting enough force into the reverse cut.
Popping and Corner Twisting
Pop resistance is the other big improvement from the Zhanchi era. Pretty much all cubes since the Zhanchi have adopted torpedoes, but the difference now is that where the Zhanchi reduced its base diameter to as small as possible, making for very small corner and edge bases, modern cubes have taken it in the opposite approach, making both the edge bases and the torpedoes flatter and wider. As a result, you now need a much larger gap between the pieces to allow the edge base to pop out on a YLM, and your screw limit won't allow this gap to form at all.
This translates pretty well to real world experimentation. It doesn't take much to get a pop on the Zhanchi, just a bit of rough turning and flexing. I can certainly see it happening during normal solves, and in fact in the past when I mained a Zhanchi, pops were a regular occurrence during practice. I gave up on trying to get the YLM to pop even with my roughest possible turning. This isn't an unexpected result: in tens of thousands of solves the only modern cube that has ever popped was a Mars, which was flawed to begin with.
It's pretty important to note here as well that the Guhong is another cube suggested pretty often, and in this regard, it's far worse than even the Zhanchi. The Guhong v1 did not have torpedoes at all, and as a result has practically zero pop resistance. Luckily, most shops only sell the Guhong v2 at this point if they still sell the Guhong at all.
Pricing and Value
The Zhanchi was released in an era where all of the top cubes were sold at $8-$11, and actually bucked this trend a bit by being priced at $15. As of now, officially it still retails for $15, but you can find them here and there for as low as $9. That certainly does seem very cheap for a top-end cube in today's world of $30+ flagships.
However, there's a balancing act that's been playing with the gradual increase of price of the flagships: the increase in quality of the ultrabudgets. The YLM is by most regards very very close to flagship level, and certainly won't hold back anyone on achieving their fastest times. Ultimately, whether you choose the MF3RS, the YLM, the Warrior W, or any other contemporary ultrabudget, for $5 or less you're getting a much better cube than the 2011 flagship Zhanchi.
Conclusion
The Zhanchi is a legendary cube, and deserves its reputation quite well. It dominated the entire cubing world for two years, and popularized a host of new technologies that would later go on to become industry standards. Its performance was incredible for the time, and in fact, I was impressed with how well it did today.
Ultimately, though, it's a cube out of a different era. Any modern speedcube has no trouble beating it in every measurable way, and in most unmeasurable ways as well. That, combined with the fact that many of these cubes are in a new market segment existing under $5, makes the Zhanchi a cube no longer deserving of a recommendation to any speedcuber.
It's a bit sad to dismiss such a legendary cube in such a way, and especially one that has served me well for nearly 5 years, but ultimately, everything must move on. Let's look to the future for better and better cubes, rather than being stuck in the past on a piece of history.
EDIT: Honestly, I kinda forgot to mention anything about the Zhanchi 2017. The thing is, the Zhanchi 2017 doesn't change the situation much. It incorporated some modern technologies, yes, but ultimately that cube is still a Zhanchi and is quite a disappointing release in today's world. I don't think that it will change the fact that Dayan's most famous cube is still the original Zhanchi, and that it and the Guhong are still the two most commonly recommended Dayan cubes.
EDIT: Honestly, I kinda forgot to mention anything about the Zhanchi 2017. The thing is, the Zhanchi 2017 doesn't change the situation much. It incorporated some modern technologies, yes, but ultimately that cube is still a Zhanchi and is quite a disappointing release in today's world. I don't think that it will change the fact that Dayan's most famous cube is still the original Zhanchi, and that it and the Guhong are still the two most commonly recommended Dayan cubes.
