The 356 Air Ultimate couldn't be more different, hence why this section was needed at all. Included with the cube were:
You may be thinking, "how does this fit in a box?" The answer to that is it doesn't, at least not when the cube is in it. Gans shipped this to me in a larger cardboard box that had both the plastic cube box, which contained the Master edition components (a pamphlet, a sticker set, and the S series springs + metal tensioning tool) as well as the blue bag that held everything else.
The Master edition, which is the one being sold everywhere outside of China, comes with a little less stuff. I believe it includes just the S springs, a metal tensioning tool, a cube bag, and a pamphlet, but I'm not entirely sure.
I was very worried when I first heard about the Air - the first prerelease picture of it showed it weighing just 59 grams on a scale, less than even the Guanlong. I hated the low weight of the Guanlong; the cube felt like it could just fold up in my hand, and I was worried that the Gans Air would be the same.
My first thought as I picked up the Air was, "did they send me a 356S V2?"
Yes, it did weigh noticeably less (though 14g more than the initial 59g), but this cube is
solid. Nothing like the papery feel of the Guanlong. It in fact feels more solid than most heavier cubes like the Weilong GTS, Yuexiao, and especially the Thunderclap.
Thank god.
On the outside, it looks pretty much identical to the 356S V2, with the same shape of squared corners, rounded edge bottoms, and round center. It uses the exact same sticker template as well, and includes the
same sticker scheme in the box. It also makes the same somewhat high pitched sound as the 356S V2.
Basically, in terms of look and feel it's just a lighter 356S V2.
Setup
There are a lot of options here. Gans cubes have always been known for their customizability, but the Air Ultimate included 7 spring sets - nearly double the amount that came with the 356S V2 Master. I've now played around with every spring, which was easy since they're so fast to swap, and I've settled on the yellow one, the lightest one in the S series.
I'm the only person I know or have heard of who's tried the G series springs, which are all lighter than the S series. Let me tell you, and this is coming from someone who considers an out of the box Hualong to be moderate speed: the G series springs are fast. The fastest one, the purple one, was far faster than I've ever felt in a cube before. It was doing 450 degrees, or 5 quarter turns, with a single flick. I couldn't even come close to controlling it well enough to speedcube with. They also seem to reduce corner cutting a bit, as do the heavier springs in the S series.
Lube wise, I opted to use a moderate amount of weight 2 on both the surfaces and the feet. Lubing the core is no longer necessary, due to the plastic on plastic contact of the nuts rather than metal on plastic of springs. My lube setup made it nice and fast but still very stable and controllable.
I've since done about 400 solves in it in the 4 days I've had it. The feeling hasn't actually changed at all, so maybe this cube doesn't need break in.
Turning
I'll be honest: out of the box, this was not a great cube. It was fast and very smooth, as we'd expect, but inexplicably there was a lot of catching. I was catching often 3 or 4 times on simple algorithms such as a Jb perm. It was so bad that if it was any other cube, I would have shelved it there and then, but I had heard that the catching gets better with setup and I really wanted to main a blue cube, so I went ahead and set it up.
After setup, the catching did improve drastically. There was still more than my GTS, but it wasn't a significant difference anymore and the raw speed of the Air made up for it mostly. I think over the course of 400 solves my turning style also adjusted a bit to it so it catches even less than it did right after setup.
Turning wise, it's an inherently fast, very smooth cube. Depending on springs and lube, the speed can be anywhere from out of the box GTS level to "there's no way anyone could control this" level.
It's just as smooth as a 356S v2, which I guess is to be expected but still kind of felt weird when I first tried it. I guess I'm used to light cubes being crunchy or clicky.
In terms of stability, boy have Gans improved so much. The cube is far less flexy and less inclined to move on its own than the S v2, and for me it's almost as stable as a Yuexiao. I don't think I know anyone who actually prefers unstable cubes, so this is a big improvement for most.
Corner Cutting
Max corner cutting: 40-52 degrees
Effective corner cutting: 36-46 degrees
Max reverse cutting: 30-38 degrees
Effective reverse cutting: 25-33 degrees degrees
Corner cutting varies a ton depending on the choice of spring. Both heavier and lighter springs tend to decrease corner cutting rather drastically, and I found that sticking with the neutral springs (stock-yellow) achieves the best results. My air full cuts with yellow springs.
Anti-pop and Anti-corner twist
Excellent on both accounts. I think the nuts are inherently tighter than springs, so anti-corner twisting is actually better than even the Weilong GTS.
Not much to say here honestly. Just a clean excellent on both accounts.
Internals
Remember how I said it has excellent anti-pop? Well, apparently it goes beyond that: the anti-pop is so good it even prevents disassembly. Just like the Weilong GTS, but even more if you can believe. We'll see why in a moment.
In the meantime, to disassemble it I had to undo a center. This would be a good time to show the GES system.
The GES nut is a 2-part nut, the bottom colored part fitting around the top clear hexagonal part. The internal spring in between them pushes them apart, creating the springiness.It's not meant to be tensioned per se. Generally we adjust the height of the screw to create tighter or looser tensions. Gans seems to recommend that instead we should simply always keep the top of the nut flush with the core arm, and instead just swap nuts for different levels of springiness.There are both upsides and downsides to this, honestly. The upside is that springiness, or how much force a cube needs to flex, can easily be changed. The downside is that overall tightness, or how much a cube can be flexed at all, is completely locked in, and the setting that the nuts lock the tightness at is a bit too tight for me.However, another upside is that they're just so easy to swap. I can perform a full spring change in 2 minutes or so, whereas the older 356s often took me 2 minutes per side because of the finicky nut and spring.Unfortunately, GES springs do not work on the 356S v2. I tried. The shaft on the centers of the 356S v2 that wrap around the core arm is too wide and too tall, and the GES springs don't fit.
Very similar looking internal designs. The centers now have 8 notches to facilitate removal of the caps, and for some reason the octopus core is now made of clear plastic.
I did find that the caps aren't quite as secure as they were on the 356S V2 - they're not about to fall out like the CX3, but I sometimes feel myself accidentally pushing a cap back in during a solve. It must jar loose pretty easily.
The obvious big difference is the extra torpedo, which IMO wasn't actually needed since the 356 did very very well in anti-pop without it. This is what made disassembling it so hard.
There's a small difference that might not be visible on camera: the Air uses more typical caps rather than the curved half-edge pieces that the 356S v2 uses. This should make for prettier illusion cubes.
Oddly enough I haven't seen a single detailed picture of the "Lube-Storing-Notch" anywhere online (Gan's own picture is covered by red). Here it is. It's a small hole maybe 2-3mm deep.
Does it work? Well, the thing is, I don't see and can't imagine it accumulating much lube if you lube the friction surfaces like most people do. Maybe if you injected lube directly into it, it would be better, but the way I lube my cubes I don't see it having much of an effect.
The main difference here is that instead of the 9 concentric grooves of the 356S v2, the Air only has one groove. I heard that reducing the depth of the grooves between the 356S and the 356S v2 improved the stability, so maybe removing the grooves altogether contributed more.
So overall? It's still a very similar design to the earlier 356's. Several small modifications here and there, some good, some not quite useful.
