The GAN 16 MagLev Max UV 3×3 comes in a stylish box containing a lot of exciting accessories. The cube comes in an openable white box, where the cube’s replaceable corner magnets are hidden under the lid on which the cube sits. The box with accessories in turn contains, among other things, a guide for the adjustment system, tools for opening the cube’s center caps and adjusting the tightening and spring strength, and a black cube bag. Finally, the box also contains a stylish collector’s card in the same design as the outer box.
Just like all of GAN’s modern puzzles, the GAN 16 is incredibly fast, even straight out of the box. How tightly the puzzle is tightened can be adjusted in six steps using the inner ring under the center cap. The cube’s spring strength (how fast the puzzle feels independently of the tightening) is, however, adjusted in twelve steps using the lower ring. If you want to change the magnetic strength, you need to temporarily disassemble the cube to be able to change the colored rods that are located under the corner pieces, where white (pre-assembled) is medium, blue is weak and green is strong.
One of the points where the GAN 16 MagLev Max UV 3×3 stands out the most is in its internal magnetization! The cube has a full 124 magnets pre-installed, where the 48 classic corner-edge magnets are of course the base. Under each corner piece there is also a magnet that attracts to the eight magnets that are mounted to the cube’s core, which gives an additional 16 magnets. Under each of the twelve edge pieces there is also an edge piece that repels the magnets in the core. As the icing on the cake, there are finally two more magnets per edge piece that are attracted to the four magnets that are in each center piece, where these last 48 extra magnets complete the maximum magnetic precision that GAN wants to achieve with this layout.
In terms of turning feel, all of this results in a GAN cube that is a bit of a hybrid that goes towards the feel that Moyu cubes tend to have. Fast, crisp, and with less lock-ups than GAN’s latest flagships, we think the GAN 16 is the best GAN cube in years, and a cube that GAN lovers the world over will surely use to break a lot of personal records.