Before this cube, the biggest in my collection was the Meilong 9, so I was excited to take on the 13. There were two popped pieces right out of the box (outermost center pieces), but I managed to finesse them back into place. Like other big Meilong cubes, the outer layers turn great, but the inner slices are a bit finicky and you have to be careful lining up all the layers before making perpendicular turns. I doused the 13 with Stardust before the first scramble, and by the time I had the centers solved, it was feeling a lot better. The solve was a great challenge, but man it's tiring. Had to take a couple breaks to rest my hands. It's big and heavy, so I relied on my desktop for much of the solve, but finishing it was a great feeling.
I've gotten spoiled with mangetic cubes and I was really missing that stability, but I can't imagine how heavy (and expensive) a magnetized 13 would be. For the price, I'm very happy with the product. Minus one star for the popped pieces out of the box, and just because there's still room for improvement in terms of overall stability.
Solve times:
Centers ~ 1hr35m
Edges ~ 25m
CFOP ~ 2m
Total time not including breaks 2:02:52! Much faster than I expected, but I can't help but think that I could have beat the 2 hr mark, and probably could have made it straight through without breaks.
Guess I have to solve it again...
