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Comment by rnernento | Hacker News Reader

Legos are still one of the most satisfying toys to buy your children. Yes they are expensive, yes it's annoying that a lot of them are built just once. That being said when you look out at the competition the bar is low.

I have a 5 and 3 year old and watching them patiently page through the instructions and put together something complex that they really care about is incredibly satisfying. Some of the sets have relatively complex mechanisms in them as well (I'm thinking specifically of the Lego Friends Shopping Mall and the Minecraft sets) and the kids are forced to understand them at least on some level.

I don't know that my daughter would be interested in classic Legos, it's Lego Friends that caught her and will keep her in front of a 200 page instruction manual for 4 hours and in my mind there's nothing wrong with that.

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> yes it's annoying that a lot of them are built just once

how is this a point people are hung up on. nobody is telling anyone they can only build a set once. hell, Lego has even started offering "alternative instructions" for certain sets to encourage you to take it apart and rebuild it.

You can do whatever you want with LEGO after you buy it and it has never been a better time to be an enthusiast.

People just like complaining about now vs. the Good Old Days (tm)

I can speak to this a little, the issue is that the sets are designed to not be as friendly to rebuilding. The walls and floors to buildings are made out of very specific pieces that aren't easily reconfigured into new structures.

Honestly some of it is so weird that I think they do it on purpose specifically to discourage re-use.

I don't think this is true at all. I recently built the Saturn V and the Mario Question Mark Block and neither had _any_ notably unique pieces in them and certainly not in any excess quantity.

I got some of the Lego Elves sets for my daughter, but the line was later discontinued and prices skyrocketed. I ordered some Communist Bricks / "Illegos" from Ali Express, and the quality was decent if you wanted them to sit on a shelf. Some of the parts, though, did not hold up to "play time" and I had to buy a few critical components from bricklink to put the dragon's wings back on.

My daughter loves the intricate Friends sets, but dislikes the Friends minifigs.

edit: you may find this interesting -- https://brickset.com/article/38929/a-survey-of-communist-leg...

The Friends minifigs are terrible! Their hair never stays on.

The fact that the legs don't move independently of each other is what she dislikes.

>That being said when you look out at the competition the bar is low.

Bluebrixx, Cobi and Xingbao are probably much better.

I would be absolutely floored if any of those other toy brick manufacturer had the quality of LEGO, they are injection molding wizards.

I haven’t tried a kit of those three mentioned, only other competitors, but brick quality hasn’t been any different from Lego.

I have one Cobi model and while it hasn't been playtested by a kid longterm the bricks look solid and the model looks good.

Doesn't the actual injection molding happen in China anyway? Wouldn't it be more surprising if the Chinese didn't learn the tricks of the trade by now?

No, for Lego the injection molding is strictly headquarter business. To the extend that the old molds/tools are literally encased in concrete beneath the buildings (you can see examples if you go to "Lego House" museum at the headquarters in Billund, Denmark).

So, no patents, but trade secrets?

Ah yes checkout Bluebrixx, they are German...the quality...not where it's produced of curse.

I am a big Bluebrixx fan but the quality is a bit shite at the moment.

Their medieval sets are stunningly beautiful. Probably the best looking set on the market.

They are great for experts but definitely not great as a casual first buy for people that try Lego alternatives. They love to use insane build techniques that are fun for experts but not really suited for beginners.

The Star Trek series has been a huge disaster for both design issues but also quality of pieces. They have serious stability issues and barely hold together. I am unironically considering plastic glue for my models.

They are constantly improving and I am sure the kinks will get worked out but currently I can only recommend them for people that like a challenge. Again, they have some stunningly beautiful sets and are worth keeping an eye on but do not buy them for children or inexperienced people.

interesting, the reviews that i saw about the star trek models pointed out some issues but were not as bad. and besides that i have not seen any other star trek set that was better, with the exception of the mega bloks one, but their way to connect the warp nacelles i would consider cheating.

Yeah, some things are really difficult to do any better with standard pieces but honestly that can't be excuse. The quality of pieces that xingbao can deliver is simply not up to the task and they should have expected that.

Plus the pressure that is put in the pieces by the weight of the models might cause them not age well. So the benefit of using standard pieces might not be that great in this case.

As for the reviews, Held der Steine is sadly very biased towards towards Bluebrixx. Look at the comments under the last video where he shows the big Enterprise. They are extremely negative.

Also quality is very inconsistent. Some people are very lucky and get good pieces while some others have less luck. So you can't really know if you get a good batch.

Honestly they are still OK display pieces but the price is not really justified by the quality.

i have read through the comments. most complain about the price and the hanging nacells. none of the commenters have built this model yet. most sound self righteous and they were never going to get this thing anyways. i'll wait until i see more reviews from people who actually built the thing.

maybe i am biased towards lego alternatives, but i don't think that the same model with original lego bricks is going to be any better. i highly doubt that the quality of xingbao bricks is the problem here.

rather this model is at the limit of what plastic can hold, and unless you cheat, like mega bloks, i don't think it is possible to do better.

in my personal opinion, if the model doesn't fall apart, then the quality of the bricks is good enough. yes, there are issues with inconsistent quality, and i have seen models that actually do fall apart. if that happens, then criticism is justified. but for the model as presented in the video, i didn't see such quality issues, and hence i don't agree that the review was biased.

Yeah, fair enough.

I had my own mid-sized Enterprise-A falling apart multiple times when I tried to pose her for photos. I dread having guests over that want to take a closer look/touch it so even as a display model it does not work for my personal need. I could just have had bad luck though.

My point is not that it is a bad model for people that know what to expect. I had fun building her but that people that just like Star Trek and might buy their first Bluebrixx set might have a very bad time.

I hope they will introduce sets that play more to their strengths, that is architecture. Mini figure scale bridge and all.

Again, I love Bluebrixx and I hope they succeed but no need to sugar coat them. They have serious issues when it comes to quality control and professionalism. You can tell from their videos where they are as surprised by the set they are reviewing as the viewer. Zero preparation and the sets are sometimes not even properly assembled. Even had signs upside down for the Chinese modular buildings.

the most expensive part of any video is the salary for the work time of the employees. professional preparation would easily multiply the cost of each video, which will force bluebrixx to charge more for their products.

in the spirit of the original topic "lego has changed since we were kids": the biggest change is that now many alternatives exist. those alternatives are cheaper and offer more choice.

more professionalism would be nice, but i for one prefer that the prices stay low. the added benefit of more professional videos is not really worth the extra expense. better to spend that time on resolving quality issues on the actual products.

Haven't tried those specific brands (and they tend to change brand every time they get sued), but I had a bunch of Lepin and whatever else.

You can tell the difference if you start mixing pieces. The official ones SNAP together, the cheapo copies just smush and don't really stick. They tend to get loose way faster too.

They're good if you want to get that 5000 piece car, build it and put it on a shelf. But if you're looking for something you can give to your kids and grandkids, get the real deal. I still have the same lego sets I got when I was a kid and now they're with my kids.

Competition has made huge quality leaps in recent years. They can not be compared to Lepin anymore.

Cobi, a Polish Company, has actually better quality than Lego and is the only one producing in the European Union.

The Chinese brands are already at 95% percent there, especially as modern Lego is actually getting worse (and probably producing in the same factories anyway). Sadly the remaining 5% can make all the difference and can be a bit frustrating at times but we should hopefully see parity soon especially a those brands try to go into the quality segment more and more.

As an adult, I don't see a reason to pay Lego prices when I can have nicer and bigger sets for much cheaper. I can cope with a little bit of frustration and some pieces not being perfect.

For children though, yeah Cobi or Lego any day.

quality of alternative bricks has improved remarkably over the last few years. and the reputable importers of chinese brands pay attention to not import cloned sets and make sure that the MOC sets they get are properly licensed from the MOC designers. so what you get is much better than what it used to be.

bluebrixx is a german brand btw. they import many chinese brands but also design and produce their own sets. they recently started producing officially licensed star trek sets.

Sorry to be clear, when I say competition I mean non-lego or knockoff toys, things like LOL Surprise or Shopkins, or Paw Patrol figures.

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