GAN 15

Imagine the frustration in the GAN marketing team every time they’ve released a new cube in the past 2 years.

After being at the top of the cubing food chain for ages, revolutionising again and again the hardware, the swappable springs, the core-magnets, the ultra-light plastic. All these advancements and improvements establishing them as the brand that costs a truckload of money, but gives you the best cubes that one can buy. The Apple of cubing (if Apple made computer that were objectively better than the others). The younger among us do not realise the steep increase in quality every time GAN had a new release. All of this cresting on the release of the Gan 12 M Pro, a cube that took the revolutionary feather-lightness of the Gan 11 M Pro and fixed its locking issues, making it one of the top 3-4 cubes that one can buy even today.

And then, much like the inhabitants of the land of calves must have felt after the fall of the Roman Empire, they had to stare forlornly at the lukewarm reception of the fruits of most of their efforts of the past few years. Maybe they were victims of their own success, creating unreasonable expectations from a public that was going to be disappointed in slow incremental improvements. Maybe they were just happy with coasting on the brand equity they had built knowing that people will buy their products anyway. Or maybe they just ran out of ideas.

But seeing a lack of excitement on their GAN 13 and questioning frowns at their #14, with most people saying “yeah, well, I’ll stick with the 12 thank you very much”, must have prepared them for what is likely going to be the reaction to their latest release. And…. they’re probably right. The GAN 15 is an excellent cube, functionally indistinguishable from the 14, which was incrementally better than the 13. And it’s still not as good as the 12.

The newest GAN sports the same lightness of touch of all GANs since the 11 barged onto the cubing world, some of its crunchiness, but not a lot of the sharp precision that makes the GAN 12 the beast it still is. The result is a cube that is a bit soft to turn, a bit elastic, loses a bit of its shape here and there, is very good for TPS and not so great for slice-heavy methods like Roux.

The plastic is the “new gan plastic” introduced in the 13, more solid, less fragile and hollow than the see-through gossamer cloth that covered the 12. This means fewer risks of breaking things if you open up one of the pieces, and less of that creaky noise you get if you squeeze the 12. The pieces are still hollow, and the cube is ridiculously light, but it does feel just as solid in the hand as the 13 or 14.

The magnets are on the mid-weaker side, and the lack of customisation (which made the GANs stand out from the new trend of making four versions of the same cube instead of one cube with adjustable settings) is a regrettable omission, especially as it doesn’t allow you to get the traditional GAN clickiness that is cherished by many.

The performance is excellent. Let me re-iterate that this is not a bad cube at all, it’s likely one of the best cubes on the market today. It’s simply not as good as its predecessor from – by now – 3 generations ago, or as something like the Weilong Super (which in contrast to the GAN 15, does manage to provide the sharp crispiness of the GAN 12). In return, it is a bit more forgiving, and showcases fewer of the “almost lockups” that the GAN 11 and to a much lesser extent the GAN 12 were known for. I’ve been getting excellent times with it, and solving for hours on end is effortless, but it’s simply not a very memorable cube, to the point where I’m mostly unable to tell the GAN 14 and 15 apart without looking at the presence – or lack – of the magnets adjustment.


So… should I buy it?

The short answer is… probably not. You can buy a Gan 12 for less money and will have a better cube that is more customisable and faster. Chip in more money (it’s a GAN, we’re not here because it’s cheap) and you can get a GAN 12 ui which is a better speed-cube than the GAN15 and is a smart-cube to boot. Or for the same price you can buy a Guhong Pro, a QiYi M Pro v2 and a RS3M v5 combined. Are they better cubes? Not really, but then again if you want the best GAN, the 15 is not the one you would want.