Stiff out of the box and is not pre-lubricated, but loosens greatly after a couple solves. The puzzles turning can be greatly improved by taking out the easily removable center caps and setting the Megaminx's tensions. The pieces of the megaminx are easy to take out for disassembling the puzzle to lubricate. But even though the puzzle is easy to disassemble, it remains solid during solves and almost never pops (if tensions are set right). Tiles are smooth and well secured on the puzzle. Even when dropped on the floor and roughed around with, the tiles remain connected and not chipped or craked. The puzzle's color scheme is great except for the fact that there are two blues that can be hard to tell apart (but it doesn't really matter because the two blues are directly across from each other so you'll never have an edge or corner piece with a secondary or third color that would be touching both blues). Over all the MF8 Tiled Megaminx is a great puzzle and is probably the best megaminx out there. MF8 Tiled Megaminx: ****1/2