A thorough review of high-end Lego knock-off models from China
Maybe you have seen Lego’s incredibly detailed, large, and most of all, really cool Creator Expert sets. If not, they are neighborhood building sets that fit together to form an entire city scene. You have everything from Town Hall to a Downtown Diner with things like a Detective Office, Movie Theater and an Assembly Square in-between.
Well awesome! However, there’s one rather large problem — these sets are not only super dope, they are also super expensive. So after drooling over them as an AFOL (Adult Fan Of Lego), you do what you always do — search the Internet for a deal. Soon you will find that there are lots of websites selling these great sets for more than half off compared to Lego’s recommended store price.
If you are like me, you get over-excited and order one right away. Especially after noticing that it will be delivered to your door for free in just a few days from within the EU or the US (depending on where you live). Once your initial exuberance has subsided, you start to look a little closer at the deal you just made only to find out that what you have bought is not actually a real Lego set but a Chinese knock-off. Bummer!
Three days later, your no longer so eagerly awaited package arrives. With feelings of being duped mixed with joyous anticipation of having a large model to build, you try to decide if you should send the package back in anger, pass it on on Craigslist or suck it up and just build it. In my case, I went for the latter but while doing so, also document the entire process in an effort to help others who are curious about these half off “Lego” sets.
Thus, here is the entire process described, from the initial unboxing to the eventual million dollar question; “does this set belong on my bookshelf next to the real Lego sets or should I hide it in the garage”.
The first thing you notice is that the whole thing arrives in a nondescript box with the bricks packed in several layers of plastic bags directly in the outer package. There is no colorful Lego box with pictures of your model. Sad face! But on the plus side, everything seems very well packaged.
Next you notice that there seems to be no building instructions included in the box. After some searching (and cursing) I found a plastic envelope taped to the outside of the box. In it were the instructions. A perfect copy of the original Lego instructions but with the front page picture blacked out so not to risk copyright infringement?! ;-)
When handling the small plastic bags holding the bricks, I get the distinct feeling that I have gotten “something” on my hands. I can’t see anything but it still feels like “something” on the bags have rubbed off on my hands…
Looking through the plastic bags filled with bricks I notice the following:
- The bricks seem to be of hight quality
- Brick color does not always match the color in the instruction booklet
- Bags don’t seem to be numbered to aid you in your building, like real Lego bags always are
- The base plate that you build the entire model on is warped
Now, on to the building. As the bags are not numbered you have to open them very carefully, in order to not destroy them, and only remove the pieces you need at the moment. If not, you will soon end up with a ginormous pile of 2500 pieces in front of you. That would definitely increase assembly time!
As initially scouted, pieces are of high quality but the fit is still so-so due to the warped base plate. Also, the pieces, for obvious “postpone litigation for as long a possible” reasons do not have “Lego” stamped on every stud like real Lego pieces have.
I am writing this post while building the model. Initial assessments might therefore change over time. For example, I was initially hesitant about the fact that bags were not numbered to aid in your building experience. After a bit of building I actually liked the “Chinese way” of sorting pieces according to size and type in unmarked bags better, as I found it easier to find the pieces I was looking for. However, after having to sift through all the bags multiple times without finding the pieces I was looking for, I am now back to thinking the Lego way with numbered bags is better.
This also brings up another important issue — that of missing pieces. Unfortunately, with unnumbered bags, poor color matching between the building instructions and the actual pieces and no actual box with photo pictures of the model — it is very hard to know, while building, if a piece is missing or not.
For example, the instructions show that you need a dark grey 1x8 but there is no such piece in any of the bags. There are, though, both light grey and black 1x8’s. Is the piece missing or just misrepresented color wise? Hard (impossible) to know until you get further along. And by that time you might realize that you have used the wrong piece 23 pages ago…
This could be, at least partially, avoided by including an inventory of included pieces in the building manual. Lego does this but, for some reason, the Chinese manufacturer decided to save a few trees and omit these pages.
Another initial issue that has changed over time is the warped base. As more pieces are attached to it, it tends to be “straightened out” by the pull and weight of the attached pieces. Also, now that I have been building for a while, I have come to realize that some of the bags do in fact have numbers (1, 2 and 3) that are supposed to correspond to the three sections of the instructions. However, it is only the bags with small pieces that have numbers on them making this more of a confusion than a help. Some pieces are also in the wrong bag (number on the bag does not match the right section of the instruction manual).
After building about a third of the model, here are my stats:
- Missing pieces so far: 1
- Warped or damaged pieces so far: 1
- Quality of pieces (out of 10 where 10 = Lego quality): 8
- Quality of instructions (out of 10): 7
Fast forward 24 hours and I have now been able to complete 2/3 of the model. The initial positivity is slowly dissipating. Too many pieces are not up to spec. Some are a little off, others are warped to such a degree that you need carpenter tools to aid in your assembly. Overall, all glass/window pieces have flaws. Not to the point where you can’t use them but little things like protrusions, sizes that are slightly off and/or have a “milky” instead of clear finish.
But worst of all have been the arched pieces. They have consistently been so warped that it has been next to impossible to assemble the model. At one point (before I realized I needed tools to make it work), I pushed down hard on a window arch only to have part of the model crumble causing a scratch on my thumb deep enough to draw a significant amount of blood. Anything even close to this has NEVER happened during the nearly 200 genuine Lego models I have put together during the last 10 years.
After building two thirds of the model, here are my stats:
- Missing pieces so far: 2
- Warped or damaged pieces so far: 87
- Quality of pieces (out of 10 where 10 = Lego quality): 7
- Quality of instructions (out of 10): 7
Yet another 24 hours later and the model is complete. I wish I could say that it got easier the more I got used to the warped pieces and so-so building instructions — but it didn’t. On the contrary, the top floor of my model had the most (and worst) warped pieces of all.
Before I got to the last floor of the model I had nearly made up my mind that despite its shortcomings, the value for money with these Chinese made models was simply to great to pass over. However, that changed a little with every piece that wouldn’t fit. I will elaborate on this in my conclusion below but first the final stat count:
- Missing pieces so far: 2
- Warped or damaged pieces so far: 173
- Quality of pieces (out of 10 where 10 = Lego quality): 6
- Quality of instructions (out of 10): 7
Conclusion:
There is no doubt that you get a lot for your money here. If you get enough, however, will be up to you, your patience with inferior products, your budget and how “brand name dependent” you are. In my case, I have decided it is tempting but ,in the end, not worth it.
If the company making these knock-offs was mine, I would much rather invest a little bit of time and money to try and take that last step into the big leagues. Why make a quick (but comparably small) buck parasitizing on Lego’s intellectual property when you are this close to becoming a true competitor.
Come on Chinese knock-off company — get your game face on, catch up to Lego quality wise and then find a niche where you can attack from the flank. You could for example go for creating giant buildable movie scenes. You obviously already know how to manufacture and sell lots of pieces cheap and who would not want to build their favorite 5000 piece movie scene!
