The Litu CR3 is a beautiful cube, and is offered in several colors. Sadly, the performance is a bit underwhelming.

Background Information

This is the first puzzle released by Litu, a small Chinese company that operates out of TaoBao. At only $8, the cube seemed pretty interesting.

Internals

Looking at this cube, it was hard to say whether I’d be getting something worthwhile. The CR3 stays pretty close to a traditional design. It features square corners, rounded pieces, and nothing seems out of place. The base of the corner is directly attached to the piece, as opposed having a stem, which is common in budget puzzles.

The Feel

This cube is very fast and somewhat smooth. The factory lubricant is much nicer than what we usually see, which was a fresh breath of air. It also is hands down the lightest cube I have ever used, and I have a soft spot for light cubes. The layer turns have small bumps, and the corner cuts are high pitched and tactile. I wish I could say I liked the feel, but it comes together to give the cube a very cheap feel that I can’t get over.

Plastic Quality

The plastic is terrible. It feels strange in your hands, and is clearly incredibly cheap. It is understandable, the cube isn’t very expensive, and cheap plastic did work out for some cubes, such as the QiYi Thunderclap. I can’t say the same about this however.

Performance

Despite the other issues with this cube, the performance is not bad. Corner cutting seems to take more effort than it does with other cubes, but this cube is completely capable of corner cutting, and can almost keep up with modern standards. The biggest drawback here is the stability of the puzzle. It is awful. The cube is extremely floppy, which isn’t too much of an issue until you’re executing algorithms and the cube locks up. Sadly, this is the biggest thing that prevents the cube from being a decent budget puzzle.

Conclusion

As much as I’d like to recommend this cube, it really isn’t a viable option for a speed cube. The fact that it comes in many colors makes it a great item for a collection, but there are many puzzles that cost less than this one that outperform it and do not lock up during algorithms. For the same price range, I’d recommend the ShengShou FangYuan, as it performs excellently and has a solid feel.

I apologize for the photographs being somewhat poor in this post, I’m new to this and hopefully will improve with time. If you have any questions or requests for puzzles I should go over, let me know in the contact section of the website.