Advantus 30502 12-Inch Globe with Blue Oceans, Silver-Toned Metal Desktop Base,Full-Meridian

The Advantus world globe is a hit at my office. It's beautifully detailed and spins smoothly. The base and frame are high-quality mirror-finish metal, a weighty, sturdy globe. Co-workers are drawn to it. I couldn't ask for more. It has neat features like international date line info and solstice/equinox info. I haven't had time to explore it fully, but believe it is well worth the modest price. It's a lovely model of the blue planet third from the sun, and the vendor (123) packed it very well. It took a little over a week to arrive and was well worth the wait. My one (very tiny) quibble is that it tends to rest at an angle that I don't care for because of the double axis. I'm going to stick a small magnet on the frame so it stays "upright." This is simply because the lettering is oriented to north=top. Or maybe I'll let it rest at an angle I'm not used to--reminding me that the US is not front and center on the earth. Oh--123 sends it in an inner, silver box with handles so you can carry it safely and easily if you need to transport it. Nice!

This globe is durable, beautiful, and fun to touch!Pros:- raised relief! If you are a kid or a grown adult like me who cannot resist feeling mountains on a globe, this is an awesome feature.- sturdy! After years of aggressive spinning with 3 little boys, a couple of falls, and other fun :) the globe has a few spots that look like maybe the coating is starting to rub off. But overall, it's in great shape. Still spins just like it did when we got it.- beautiful! The colors are soothing, if slightly child-oriented. The two hemispheres came together just about perfectly on ours. Really nice to look at.Cons:- a few inaccuracies—see other reviews. For our purposes, this is totally fine. But geography majors may want a different product.- doesn't glow. I could see adding an LED that illuminates from the bottom. In fact, a flashlight does the trick. But the globe doesn't glow. Not a big deal IMO, but one of the few cons I could think of.All in all, I recommend this globe to those that can't help but "feel" the mountains or families with kids.Pro-tip:Follow the advice of another reviewer and switch the spring washers around… it really holds better that way.

Does a perfect globe exist? Probably it does, but I couldn’t afford it. I’m happy with this one although it isn’t perfect.The good stuff: it came in a super sturdy box that held the globe stable during transport. (The manufacturer ships it, not Amazon.) The stand seems strong and sturdy, and of course I’m grateful for the 720° rotation. The colors are attractive. I even like the raised texture where there are mountain ranges. I’m glad that the United States is divided into states. Finally, although I’m not 100% educated on geography, I can say this globe is up-to-date enough for my purposes; for example, Sudan is divided into Sudan and South Sudan.The less-good stuff: I’m surprised to see that Canada’s provinces are named, but not outlined! Unless the lines are just so fine that I can’t see them, you have to guess their boundaries. Some cities are identified in the US states, but I was really surprised to see that state capitals are not identified! I suppose some state capitals are named, but Austin Texas (where we live), Tallahassee Florida, and other states I’m familiar with have various cities but not their capitals identified! I also think that city placement is close, but not 100% accurate. Nevertheless, this globe will get a lot of use in homeschooling, and will serve our purposes. I would buy the same globe again if I needed to for some reason.

I've wanted a globe for some time, but i've found it really hard to decide because of the reviews. All seemed worthless, to judge from them.i'm happy with this one. The stand is excellent, and mountains are depicted by elevations on the globe. As for accuracy, everything seems to be labeled, the labels are legible, and they aren't falling off. i'm not going to check see if Taiwan is depicted as a separate nation because i don't care. The globe is very attractive, and it gives me a good feeling for the real (not Mercator) sizes of the countries and continents in question.(A note about my method of reading reviews: i zero in on the worst reviews and try to winnow the nut-cases and whiners and unfortunates from those who make sensible comments. A great many of positive reviews seem to come from interested parties, while occasional really bad reviews are paragons of speaking truth to bad products. An alternative method of parsing reviews is to sort by date added. if all the latest reviews say "this product sucks," that is a bad sign.)

We bought this globe for homeschooling 1 1/2 years ago. We use it regularly. I like that it can be swiveled in all directions so we don't need to crouch down to see the southern hemisphere. We do have to be careful to not get fingers pinched in the brackets. I think the coloring and borders depicted are good enough. We just noticed that the red lettering has faded quite a bit. Another reviewer gave a one-star review because of this. I do not know if it faded because of indirect sunlight or only because of poor dyes, but I am very disappointed! I also agree with other reviewers about the globe having a Chinese perspective on borders. Affordable globes are not easy to find. This one is pretty good but could use improvements.