ah well I'm cool with the gel one, compared to my russian crap this one works like god damn magic.
the station actually arrived today (they dispatch it yesterday + order adjustment) i paid for 3day service, got it pretty much next day as i placed order late in the evening.
in the spirit of EEVblog i did open it up and snap a few pictures, its actually quite tidy and looks a lot better than what had, which rather horrendous. to my surprise it actually has 3, yes 3 fuses, one in UK plug, one at the plug on the station itself (both easy to replace) and a third glass one inside in those tweezers what you call em. snapped a few photos, ill upload them later.
did some soldering, it did struggle at first, but once it warmed up (burn in?) it did very well, not touch instant melt but it does quite damn good, haven't used a hakko 951 to compare (cartridge tips budget hakko?) but I'm quite satisfied, it keeps temperature up quite well and melts lead free quite easily on whatever (5+) layer phone motherboard.
the stand is fairly good too, with a little tip storage rack and a rather useless solder roll thing, its made of nice thick sturdy steel, quite heavy.
There was a rubber spatula like thing with a hole which looks like its supposed to be hung, which i got no clue what it is for.
all in all it feels nice and solid, handle is comfortable (was fiddling for good 3 hours without fatigue, cable is really nice rubbery and flexible.
also controls are simple it goes up/down by 2c every click, +/- or reset to 350. not as good as a knob but way better than that hakko 4button puzzle.
edit: the free tweezers are really quite good quality too, comfortable with really nice tiny tips to grab small parts with.