QiYi Thunderclap Review

(Transcript from video)
Now I didn’t get this cube right away.  I had tried the bullfight and although it was a decent cube I didn’t find anything special about it.     It seems that the Thunderclap has gotten a pretty large and vocal fanbase so I decided it was time to test it out. 

I want to thank SpeedCubeShop for helping me make this review possible.  Stop by their store and use discount code CubeReview for 20% off of you order!

Now I have here the stickerless version.  The build of it feels cheap.  It is very light and the plastic does not feel very strong.  Not quite to the amount of a GuanLong, but almost like a MoYu HuaLong.  Sometimes the pieces seem to want to just come apart. This was a big problem at first but after a few hundred solves it has seemed to not happen as much.  Out of the box this thing is fast and very loose.  I had to tighten the tensions and add lube to slow it down.  I tried my regular combo of Lubix on the core and weight 25 on the pieces but it just didn’t seem to work.  I tried putting AoLong springs in it but that didn’t feel right either.  I went out and bought weight 50 silicone lube and that was exactly what the pieces needed.  

This thing cuts both ways as well as any other new cube on the market.  The corners are not square like on the Gans, or MeiYing so it does have a tendency to corner twist once every hundred solves depending on your tension.  

Now I have used the MeiYing since it came out in May of this year.  I could not find anything that I liked better.  The Thunderclap might have knocked the MeiYing out as my main.  It is no where near a perfect cube.  The corner twisting occurs much more often comparitivly, and I definitely prefer the slightly smaller size of the MeiYing as opposed to the 57mm Thumderclap.  It does have the more rounded pieces which reminds me of the original AoLong and allows the pieces to flow over my fingers more easily compared to the very blocky pieces of the MeiYing.  What the Thunderclap does best though is it just flows.  When I am performing certain algorithms I always had times where the cube would just lock up on me.  This cube just seemed to be able to move without any resistance.  It makes solving a but more enjoyable since there are fewer times that I feel like a solve was ruined with the cube either catching on my own fingers or on the other pieces.

Here is the most interesting thing though.  Look at these colors.  The yellow, red, orange, and blue seem to be almost the exact same as my stickerless bright MeiYing, the only difference is the green, but that seems to be almost identical to the green on the bright pink stickerless HuaLong.  It is almost as if they are the same shades that are used in the MoYu/YJ/Cong’s Design factory.  I do not know if QiYi is trying to copy the colors, if they are the same factory, or if this is just one big coincidence.  

This cube is amazing for the price and I enjoy it more than most of the other cubes in my collection.  I did spend more time trying to find the right tensions and lubrication than any other cube before it.  I can see why there is so much hype about this cube.  It is not a premium feeling cube but it does its job and it does it well.