i'd be very curious what is the difference between the plastic composition. I guess it's no surprise to anyone that knockoff things made in china can have serious health and safety issues, especially plastic ones (let's be clear, not because they are made in china or by chinese people, but because they are made by greedy people who only care about money). Lego on the other hand is made in a very clean, highly controlled industrial environment (one of the reason of high cost) and is tested for safety, after all it's a toy, kids will surely put in their mouth (and adults too if their hands are full while building)...try things like heating them, melting them, compressing them, freezing them, putting them into acidic and alkali solutions, rubbing them together continuously to simulate wear and tear, etc...don't think anyone has done that and you got plenty pieces to sacrifice a few in the name of science...
Lepin is genius, they don't even need to pay for assembly, the customer does that for them. They just need the plastic molds and some printers. And the ant suicide nets.
I bought an off brand Lego Hogwarts Castle. Got all 6,000+ pieces in numbered bags, only one was broken (which was easy to replace). The set looks exactly like the set bought from Lego would look like, except I saved $260.
@@RoseLikesFootball its infringing copyright, dont support knockoffs. the minifigure is actually trademarked by lego also thats why you dont see megabloks or kre-o use that design.
The discontinued Lego sets are now much too expensive to be bought as kids' toys. For example the Imperial Star Destroyer from 2014 then cost about 150$ (already expensive), but now has doubled in price in the so called "aftermarket" in Europe. When Lego thus chooses to not to satisfy the demand, and facilitate that toys become investments or collector's items for adults instead, they are begging for someone to meet the demand for TOYS. Everybody would be happy to support Lego and get their superior original quality rather than a fake set, but Lego chose not to meet that demand, and now they can feel the backlash. I hope it's not too late for them to change their strategy.
I know this is incredibly old but same with Mattel. Mega Construx sets are in shelves for like 6 months before they’re gone. So us collectors gotta buy fast before the next wave
Yeah, I've seen that set sell for over $2,000 now. I'll probably never sell my set, even though I've had to build and rebuild it it 3 times (its in pieces currently), because the HORRIBLY designed stand/base falls apart and the whole damn ship tips over and has fell from a height of 6 feet twice and shattered. Lego was nice enough to replace all the stand pieces, but its weak point is the black/blue pins that go in the technic bricks. I think when I rebuild it, for a 4th and HOPEFULLY final time, I'm going to just go ahead and Gorilla Glue all the base/stand pieces together...............
Richard Tickler Absolute bullshit my friend, the quality of a product isn't determined by the location of the factory but by the factory itself. I have recieved many lego sets that were made in China and they are exactly the same as the ones from Danmark, Lego knows what they are doing and if you ask me, the quality of their piece has gone up.
Since I started building models from Lepin, Decool, and Jisi...etc a year ago, I realized that I've spent too much money on LEGO for the past decades. Personally I think these "fake" brands provide opportunities for kids from less-wealthy families/countries to access the same level of fun and experience.
@@Kolonol1 i personally like lepin. im hopefully getting a republic dropship with at-ot for my birthday! i don't come from a family wealthy enough to spend 1000 dollars for the real deal so i'm glad we have these alternatives. (don't feel bad for me as i still live a good life and we do in fact have money. just not enough to spend it on lego)
@@Duckbusinessman oh no I agree with you 100%....I have the millennium falcon Superstar destroyer two Star destroyers the tainted four the imperial shuttle and the slave one.... All Lepin... And you know the funny part? After a few years my dark red and brown Legos began to get brittle and break... Never broken a Lepin...
@@Kolonol1 i didnt reply in an attack actually! sorry for misunderstandings. i actually replied to agree. i'm just getting into lepin and i feel like a lot of my christmases we're wasted on somewhat expensive lego sets that in reality just expansive based on branding. but now i can actually enjoy playing with affordable things that i once thought only rich people could have
Very interesting. While I prefer original Lego bricks, I really like the more streamlined building instructions. It's maddening to have a whole page for one piece.
I remember when I was a kid, I loved going to any store and get a lego set, but now the sets are so expensive and Im unabble to expend those ammounts of money. I still have my old legos in my room, and some old sets from the time of the prequels that I got from the flee markets.
If Lego just would produce all lego parts also as spare parts the normal people wouldn´t care about scalpers bc they could just buy all models for a bit more than listet price.
@Mitch Hirt something lies to you, and you are gullible enough to believe it. the bootlegs are mainly of sets still in production, and there aren't that many "scalpers" - far less than there are selling antique cars in good condition, for example.
@j v the problem is that you can't buy these sets from Lego anymore because they are discontinued. That's the reason why I'm okay with buying the lepin sets. The difference between the Lego sets and classic cars is that a classic car is no longer produced and there's nobody out there making an alternative version for sale. If you want a '58 Buick you have to buy it from someone who got the car, then invested thousands of dollars in the maintenance, upkeep, and restoration of the car. With legos someone went out and bought the super star destroyer for $400 and then stuck it in a closet for 10 years and now they're trying to sell it for $3000. I should have to pay 3k for a $400 set that I couldn't buy 10 years ago because I was homeless at the time when there's another company that has made it available for a more reasonable price? If Lego re-released the set I would buy it from them but they haven't. They already made their money on the set. I'm not paying some speculator 10 times the original price when there is an alternative. Buying a set from a speculator doesn't benefit the Lego company and buying a knock-off of a discontinued product doesn't hurt Lego either.
Thanks man! Always wanted the Ewok Village and I was considering buying the Lepin version. Good to know that the end results aren’t too different! Another main difference is that the minifig heads are slightly off in their printing, like they don’t look accurate to the actual LEGO ones
I would only consider buying Lepin for the discontinued sets, as my mode of thinking is that Lego has already made their money from the official version and would not lose out on revenue on sets they no longer produce. The only people who will make a profit from official discontinued sets are those who resell, and I don't think I have to go into detail on how outrageous the prices can get. But any set currently available I will buy Lego's version. I honestly would feel better about it if Lepin didn't make current sets as well, but that will never happen.
That's a great way to think about it. Lego chooses not to produce certain sets after a certain amount of time. So then if someone else wants to keep making a comparable one, why not buy it. I'd buy it from Lego if they'd sell it, but they aren't interested in taking my money so I'll give it to whoever is.
Tldr, Stuff for display like a huge ship, fake is better. But if you want to play with it (like move the pieces around alot) get real since fake bricks wear out in a few days.
I bought the Lepin UCS Millennium Falcon, it didn't come with 17 numbered bags as the Lego set does, it came with about 150 bags, and they WERE numbered. I had 6-10 bags per "bag", they were numbered. So for "bag" three I had the ~10 bags numbered 3 which were basically pre sorted for my convenience. Gotta hand it to lepin, they ARE getting better.
I fought the UCS Millennial Flacon, with didn't come 6-10 numbered bags as which Lepin set does, it came with about 17 bags, and they WAS numbered. I had 6-10 bags per "bag", they weren't numbered, except for the good ones. So for "bag" three I had the ~10 bags numbered 5 which were basically pre snorted for my convenience. Gotta hand it to lepin, they ARE getting droogier.
I believe that the CRAZY expensive sets arenlt worth the money. I feel fine with buying the UCS knockoffs, but lower priced $100ish sets, LEGO deserves that money.
This was a great video! It was kool when you mentioned it had no LEGO logo on the brick studs thanks for doing this video cuz i learned something new about fake LEGO :)
Very impressive. I watched a few of your videos and I am suprised. I am playing with Lego for almost 40 years by now and I never heard of a company called Lepin till today. Very helpful videos. Keep it going!
I love how controversial people get about Lego... live and let build, if I'm building a yellow house, and all I need is a basic 2 stud brick, if I don't have it in yellow in Lego but I do in mega bloks, that's okay
Yeeetus Like he says in the video, It costs money for LEGO to design and develop these kits in the first place, not to mention paying for the license properties like Star Wars, or a Porsche or a Bugatti vehicle. This gets translated to the consumer.
@@jv-lk7bc FORTUNATELY, the market for bootlego provides for those who aren't drowning in cash and consumers who have at least a modicum of rationality in choosing identical products for the cheapest price. The rhetoric that "Lepin is counterfeit trash" becomes stale once actual Lego starts to eat at your wallet. To the rational consumer, the cheapest product is the best option.
the fake sets are usually virtually indistinguishable from the real, but a few things you forgot to include is that the print on minifigs and printed bricks can be a little off center (though it's rare), that not all knockoff brands will include the decals, and that even the better knockoff brands sometimes have heat-damaged parts like a shriveled up arm or a warped plate I live in Vietnam and have so many sets! it's just nice cos you can get 5 or 6 huge sets for the price of one official sets, and it's easy to find rare/old sets - I just got almost the entire 2014 arctic collection and it's just perfe t
not in my experience, i bought a lepin ucs millium falcon (the newer one) and it holds together fine, the only difference was some parts were tighter than normal, which might be better for the long run.
Lowkey want to buy some lepon sets to make my clone army bigger and maybe finally have a UCS set. Its tempting but I don’t want to have fake pieces and sets in my collection 😬
Mate As a grown collector of Lego sets Myself I find lepin just GODLIKE store. They surelly have some problems but thats not a problem to fix them when you have Bircklink or Ebay. And as for me I usually Cover 90% of the VISUAL Lepin stuff with REAL Lego. For example buy - Super star destroyer for 110$(Lepin) and Replace Huge plate bricks with original Lego for 30$. Now you have Set of Super star Destoyer Visually built of Lego bricks and Costing you 140$ ...not 1000+$. Easy...
My problem is the wannabe lego investors hiking up the price. I just want to build the sets i want, or create my own ideas, preferably as cost effective as possible. There are some projects on the shelf for decades because the parts I need are near impossible to get cheap, or i gave to use several Bricklink online stores to get several. The Chinese copies solve the money issues. I am more into veteran and classics, as those are the models I wanted, or had, and later received. There are these pre-miniland sets or partial sets I want to restore, and also create from scratch. I think it called Town Plan. I have not met anybody who collects pre-miniland Lego... find that fascinating.
"Only the best is good enough" sounds suspiciously like the Everton football club motto in 1878 "Nil Satis Nisi Optimum" meaning "Nothing but the best is good enough". The irony that even the Lego founder had made similar ideas to others.
When you want to make the scene from the beginning of new hope in lego but you have the Collectors Rebel ship but you have the normal star destroyer: "Um isn't the rebel ship supposed to fit inside here?"
What is wrong with some people? They are both brands who entertain kids as these reasons Lepin seems better but they are a tiny bit less detailed like 0.1% less detailed you might have grown up with Lego but Jesus Christ calm down I just came here to comment how people are mad about children's toys just chose one and keep your opinion.
Lepin is great for retired sets, as the pricing for real lego retired sets is WAY higher than it should be. I can see people buying Lepin for only retired sets, but for anything else, there is no excuse for buying Lepin or any other fake brand!
There is an excuse considering sets like the UCS 2019 Star Destroyer is 4500 pieces and costs 700$ or you can buy a knockoff set with 12000 pieces with 10x the detail for 500$... Lego charges way too much money for big sets nowadays and its starting to get out of hand, They also try their best to get a monopoly on sets when they would probably make more money selling the trademark and copyrights
Disagree. Copying someone's design bypasses the R/D that the creating company has to spend, so of course the copy will be cheaper. But what is also important to note is that the chinese knockoffs are most-likely made in sweatshops with little wage to the workers. Lego employees are paid (I would think) a very fair salary. Does this matter to someone simply looking to save money and doesn't care about brand? Nope. But to simply state Lego is disgraceful with their pricing is short-sighted and uneducated.
Brian Westfield most Lego assembly is automated not a ton of people actually work in the factory if only to make sure the machines are lubed and running well. Theres not that much painstaking toil as far as craftsmanship goes by Lego anyway and not a ton of factory employee overhead for the price they charge. Second and most importantly. Many people who buy these sets live in impoverished parts of Asia, Europe, and the middle east, where the wages at work are abysmal, yet still they want to do something nice for their kids, and since some Lego sets could take a entire weeks paycheck or more they get lepin for their kids. I say good on I'm for doing what they can for their families.
Brian Westfield I mean if all u want is the set for a cheap price it doesn't really apply to u what they are trying to do so it doesn't really matter to the average LEGO builder and collector
I posted this on another video, but it bears repeating... What I get from these: If you are an adult Lego builder you won't like these. If you are a kid who just wants to play with Legos then go with the cheaper option. If you are a connoisseur of Lego then you would never buy Lepin. For everyone else - especially those without the disposable income, Lepin is a great alternative.
Much more differences, a few: Quality of production plastic is much higher with lego, the blocks are much more consistant with lego, the plastic is much more durable, etc
I actually prefer unnumbered bags. It lets me use my brain and build instead of always being handheld by Lego. I collect a lot of OFFICIAL Mega Bloks sets whose bags are never numbered yet some people say mega bloks is a knock off of Lego but in reality it isn't. Lego can't own or copyright a brick design just like Boeing cant copyright the shape of a plane wing. Plus Lego initially stole the whole Idea of bricks from another company decades ago. But now they act like they own it and everyone else who makes toys with bricks is not genuine. I'm not saying lepin isn't a knockoff of Lego, They definitely are and I think they are doing a damn fine job of recreating Lego sets that would normally be out of the average person's price range. I will only buy lepin sets for the old UCS sets and Batwing. But all other stuff I still would get Lego.
20 years ago, MB was indeed a knock-off of LEGO. But after TLG sued them for infringing on their current-at-the-time copyrights, MegaBloks started getting better by not copying everything LEGO did. MB are known to carry the Halo and Star Trek themes. TLG does not... In this way, they are trying not to step on each other's toes. I still don't like non-LEGO as I have zero trust in their products. TLG has proven their plastic bricks over the last 60 years. No other company can claim that.
@4:10, There's a reason why LEPIN and other rip-off clones are "cheaper" compared to LEGO brand. 1) TLG spends a lot of money on R&D for sets. They research how a theme is received by the target audience. They have to design the product through multiple phases and committees before it ever leaves the factory. Well educated and experienced (graphics, engineer, industrial) designers are not cheap. The LEGO Group also works closely with big companies to get permission to sell licensed themes such as Star Wars. LEPIN simply steals the hard work of TLG and sells what TLG proves as popular. I doubt LEPIN and others have bothered to ask Disney if they can sell Star Wars themed products. 2) TLG has very high standards for its products. The tolerances for how each brick is made are very low. This is why parts from the late 1950's will work with parts made yesterday. LEPIN doesn't really care if their tolerances are off so much... the parts either don't stick or become too hard to separate. (Clutch power.) This is really evident in the miniFigure knock-offs. And the Technic ripoffs show this problem in the gears and pins. 3) TLG can certify their products are not toxic to your kids. If, by chance, a child swallows a LEGO part, they will not get sick. Just be sure the part passes through the digestive system... LEPIN, on the other hand, has not demonstrated safety in their products. I refuse to let non-LEGO products in my kids' hands. I would not want to do their safety-testing with my kids. I seriously doubt they care if a child swallows their parts and gets sick or dies as a result of ingesting toxic plastic parts. 4) As you alluded in this video, there is an aftermarket for LEGO elements and sets. If you kept a set for a while but got tired of it or needed cash to buy a new set, you could sell an older (popular) set and buy that new LEGO set. The same cannot be said of the rip-off clones. Yes, LEGO can be expensive. But, if you plan it well enough, you can sell old sets and buy new sets. LEPIN would basically become (best case) recycled or (most likely) sent to a nearby landfill as waste.
For god's sake some morons keep posting this bullshit about Lepin bricks being toxic, no they are not, someone who works in a lab actually tested them to profesional standards, and found them to be 100% safe... www.reddit.com/r/lepin/comments/5jpenk/testing_for_lead_substance_on_lepin_bricks/ also here ua-cam.com/video/w_dqS2zxS2w/v-deo.html and here ua-cam.com/video/sHIWOG_iujQ/v-deo.html So, you're talking bullshit. Nonsense on the internet, what a surprise... *sigh*
Ultimately, I'm not too bothered about Lego's market research (how much does it really cost to work out that Star Wars is popular), I'm happy to replace the odd defective or missing brick as that's usually very easy to do, I don't have kids and I don't need to sell Lepin sets because I can buy 10 of them for the price of 1 lego set. It all depends what you enjoy about Lego. Do you enjoy the market side of things - collecting them, keeping track of the prices, selling them on for a profit etc or do you simply enjoy building sets? If it's the former, there is only 1 option. If it's the latter, you'll have more fun building 10 sets than you will building 1.
I've only bought a couple but what is consistently bad across the Lepin sets is the pieces where tolerances matter. Minifig legs and arms are loose, the studshooters don't work, the technic axles fit loosely and have very little friction.
Lepin, Megablocks, Construblocks, lele.... and all the brick-based toys (including aliexpress fakes) Patent info (google it): "Method of packaging toy building elements and packaging for exercising the method" US 6554675 B1
How does Lepin get away with licensing, why doesn't Disney sue its ass off for copying the vehicles, even if they change it to "star plan" or some other shit?
Supreme Leader Smeagol The Big Problem: it's China. Last year Lego had taken legal action against Lepin, but it could be a long time before it's resolved because it's China and the Chinese don't care.
The Candy Man yeah I know Lego has sued many ripoff brands and failed, but I'm wondering about why Disney hasn't taken action against them for copying the Star Wars vehicles
China is also very different from the west... where in the west, it is completely illegal to copy a product, the culture in China is almost the opposite. Once a product is out there, you are free to copy it (its cultural). For example, they copy phones and cars (although they dont copy the cars very well atm). BMW attempted to sue when the X5 was copied and they failed as Chinese courts are bias.
Absolutely right. This comes mainly from the fact they all look the same, so it's not a shame to be a clone of other people in China or any yellow asian country. + China is officially, and has been actually at least for almost 4 generations a communist country, so they are used to share everything. To own private goods is quite a new thing for them. So, protecting and owning ideas, you could easily guess that's it's far from theire culture
For out of print sets it looks like a sane option. For stuff that's still avilable I don't see why I would want cloudy plastic windows or bricks with less clutch power.
I swear lego would make more money if they dropped their prices to with in lepins range and did not retire sets. Lower prices would allow lego to make more money by sets sale volume. I have met so many parents who are scared away from buying lego because of the high price's, when will lego learn!
U thing they just produce a set? That they don't pay marvel or disney or lucas for the rights to use their names or produce their models? Why dont u go buy some fake chinese eggs and eat them as they are producing fakes egggs and vegetables and and other toxic stuff. What is your guarantee, aside of quality, that their plastic is not toxic. Not enough money to buy the real thing? Then you don't need it.
Lego didn't nearly go bankrupt in '04 because it had "too many pieces in too many colors" lol You seem to be the misinformed one man, you got half the story right though, Lego did go through a very hairy situation in the early 2000s which cause the original CEO to hand in his letter of resignation and allow a new younger CEO to step in, and the main issue that younger CEO found when he stepped in was most certainly not "too many pieces in too many colors", it was the fact that Lego was hemorrhaging money in way too many areas, so they were forced to sell one of their Legoland Theme Park locations in order to give them some financial breathing room, which would allow them to step back an analyze how they could remedy Lego's dire situation in the early '00s. The main issue they landed on was that Lego had stretched so far from their original vision, the very thing that made them unique when they first started in the 50s... and that was Town/City building. That's why the first thing the CEO did was enact the "Lego City" line which reinvigorated the Lego company once again. Simple City buildings and vehicles that resembled their real life counterparts. This did simplify their need for specialize bricks, but it didn't mean that their mission was to revert to less variations of bricks, they would actually go on to create even MORE specialized bricks for a lot of the buildings and vehicles themselves. So no, Lego never had an issue with "too many bricks", even if they did indeed have a bankruptcy scare in the early 00s. Now I agree with you, it is counterintuitive for Lego to keep producing sets, retiring them is naturally the way to go, but I think that it wouldn't hurt Lego at all if they allowed people to order some of the retired sets directly from them at a discounted price, and maybe ship them without box to save on shipping, which would relive the market of scalpers, allow people to attain some of the more specialized pieces in older sets, and let them continue to profit from older sets without the need to constant continuous growth and creation from their own engineers. We've also got PLENTY of people on Lego Ideas who are simply happy to get their creation chosen by Lego, now if Lego would make their Ideas process a bit less critical, and allow some of the less popular creations to get passed, they could simply let us, the consumers, buy those Fan Created mocs for a discounted price, sans box art.. etc, just the parts in a clear bag with instructions, and everyone would benefit from it.
@@berndarndt9924 food is essential, lego is not. That's what I meant. So you don't need a stolen lepin crap to survive, if you do, then go buy their crappy toxic vegetables. Don't twist words.
Well of COURSE Lego is way more expensive. They have to develop these sets, which is an expensive process. They pay a ton of licensing fee. They do awesome events for their fans. They have to do advertising etc.etc.etc. and they have some awesome customer support. All these knockoffs do is copy and sell. Last but not least, what about the quality ? My brother is 50, and his kids played with a Lego collection he started, and in a few years his grandkids will be able to play with it. The quality of Lego is out of this world. Can you name any other toy, that can be played with for 45 fucking years, and it is still fully functional and still looks good ? Even the colors are still mostly ok, except a few who where too long and often on the sun, but even they are not that bad, just a little off. Do you know if these knockoffs can do that ? Will they even survive 10 years ? Cause I cannot imagine they care as much about quality as Lego does. Can you call them when 5 years down the line you miss a few peaces of a set, and buy them again for a few cents, so you have a complete set again ?
Yeah, well fortunately you brother started a collection however many years ago. You're kind of putting the cart before the horse here. Other people are just getting into this, or in my case going back to it. They don't have a prebuilt collection to work from. And I'm not going to spend 3k on some set that was retired two years prior. I'm sure the same goes for parents buying this stuff for their kids. I had legos when I was a kid, 4 of those big rubbermaid bins full, but I remember the strain it put on the pocketbook to get them. Thankfully my parents had decent jobs and could afford to buy sets once in a while (usually b-days and Christmas). If you want to spend oodles of money to be some purist, that's fine, that's your thing, enjoy. For the rest of us 3k is really fucking pricey and I'm sure as hell not spending it on a set of legos if I had it, especially when I can buy the same set produced by lepin for a hundred bucks now. Will they last forever? They're plastic, I'm fairly sure they'll last for some time. I've got the Vestas wind turbine (something you could never buy unless you shelled out a few months of paychecks for) and city tower crane as is and both are really friggen sturdy and handle just as well as the lego crawler crane I have. In the end I think it's going to come down to purist vs everyone else. There's always that issue in anything. Praise lego as much as you want (I love'em too), you just need to face reality that lots of people don't have alot of spare cash floating around to dump on toys.
As longevity goes, Lego just use the same ABS plastic as the knockoffs do. Their strength was the precision and design. But the chinese manufacturers started to catch up in quality, while they still don't have interests in genuine designs though. Is it unethical to copy the Lego sets? Yes, of course! But Lego forces people to buy knockoff brands by their insane pricing. Sure, licensing themes and designing complex models is expensive. But inhouse themed sets are (and were since ever) still expensive as hell, despite that they don't need any license. Where are the cheap bags of parts? Like the buckets of basic bricks, but this time with bags of themed parts or technic sets without license or modelling expenses. Most kids aren't really interested in their designs either. They just want a bunch of parts of the specific theme.
Lego could also just sell all parts without developing, licensing costs but they don´t want that. They want to overcharge you on every brick you buy. And btw some StarWars/HarryPotter sets have more Bricks/Minifigures/mass than unlicensed sets. And for developing, they have a community with tons of ideas, that shouldn´t be the issue.
Why are you so triggered? I think everyone knows all of this but I think it's good that people and their children who are less fortunate or just more strapped for cash can enjoy something that really is priced way too high. They're fricken little plastic bricks that probably cost 0.01 cents to produce a piece....
My son just finished building the Lepin Voltron Robot that had 2600 pieces. All the bags came labeled to match the Lego bags, but there were sob labeled bags. 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 2-1, 2-2 etc all the way up to group 16. Good quality and good build.
Technically speaking, it's the other way around The definition of "rip off" is a bad financial transaction A "Knock off" is a cheap copy, or counterfeit without permission.
Paul Valentine I absolutely despise rip off brands. the real makers try hard and put their blood ,sweat and tears into their work while lazy pricks just copy them!I hope lego sues their ass
LEGO moved production to China in recent years and how these knock-offs are being manufactured seems to be whomever made the LEGO factory in China decided to see who else would pay for a "LEGO" factory of their own or the plans got into the wrong hands. LEGO uses specialized injection molding which would be expensive to replicate if you didn't already have the plans for their machines and based on LEPINS injection holes in identical spots, they're using the same machines but removed the LEGO logo from their molds.
That's actually a plus as far as Disney is concerned in my opinion. They are destroying this series. The first two movies were, IN MY OPINION, the bestwo movies ever made. Now that I think of it, George Lucas kinda trashed the series before Disney got a hold on it.
I know, ... if you wanto talk aboutrue theft of intellectual property, perhaps we should talk to the Tolkiens, whom I believe have sued those who made those six movies and have not paid them. THAT is true theft. I feel horrible for Lego, but consider the slime at the helm of Disney to be the lowest sort of burglars.
WilliBond0007 they sold the rights for a quarter million dollars, and after the movies became a huge succes, they wanted more due to a equivoval paragraph in the contract. Sounds more like being greedy and is only losely comparable to lego vs lepin.
Well nobody should pay Disney for anything. Disney has destroyed star wars. That's why I don't even buy the knockoffs of Farce Awakens sets. (I may buy a Millennium Falcon one day, but only because they don't have a version from the OT. I'll probably burn the Rey and Finn figures tho)
Same plastic. It's just ABS and the "Lego-ness" is just because the quality of the dies. But as they get better the sets do also get better, I can attest to that. Lepin a few years ago was not as good as it is now.
The only 2 reasons I don't buy lepin are that you dont get that feeling that you built this really cool Lego set, you get the feeling that you built a clone of the the thing you want. Also, i got some fake Lego from relatives, and they are super hard to put together and just overall lower quality.
There's another difference visible in those shots with all of the models together: Lepin's x-wing's wings don't stay together. That would bug the crap out of me
Proud owner of three Lepin sets: Cafe Corner, Starbucks and the Dino museum. I buy all available sets from Lego, often directly from their home page (Parisian restaurant, pet shop...and all creators after them, the Ghostbuster HQ, the Simpsons stuff etc. pp.), but these retired sets, or these awesome Lego ideas sets which were never put into production...Lepin is the way!
Actually I realize the old chrome gold/silver bricks were painted, but it would be virtually impossible to make them reflective if they were just colored plastic. Even then though, one could argue that the chroming process counts as a coating and is different from paint.
Guys, stop hating! I've been a lego buyer since I was like 8, but they totally lost it when pricing their products. If you're some kind of millionaire then go and spend 3000 dollars on a set, but understand that some people prefer spending that amount on different stuff and paying only 100 bucks for that same set. Lepin sucks because it copies Lego, yes, but among Lego's copies, is the best option!
Ruben Carrascal even though its a lot cheaper, that doesn't stop it from being wrong that Lepin have copied a Lego designers' hard work for their own benefit. That's what keeps me away, among other reasons.
You don't NEED Lego, like food or drink. And yes, Lego is expensive, that's why I mainly buy during season sales (up to -50%). Also, second hand and garage sales can be a good bargon !
As for SW expensive sets, they're for collectors who can afford them. I Like The Tantive 4 or evne the Death Star. I won't buy it. Even the last Millenium Falcon, 140€ at least. Lepin is cheaper, but weaker. I got Minions and Spongebob sets by Megablock (5o% sales) for my kids. It IS cheaper and less well finished. But it's OK !
I've noticed on some the fake minifigs that their clutch on the joints at times are extremely loose. On brick quality the clutch is good, but also some are too tight or loose. Very inconsistent. The bricks too tend to have more noticeable scratches. Not all but mostly noticeable on black. Also the 'black' bricks sheen/texture is at times duller than Lego. Like you said on instructions, some colors hard to figure out. I've even gotten primary colors (red, yellow, blue, etc) to differentiate other colors like black and grey. Very weird...lol. I think if you're going with these other companies, go with product that Lego doesn't make. They have some unique products. If it's an existing kit OR something that's retired, you can still piece together these kits using BrickLink, parts online like eBay or Lego.com themselves. You CAN build Lego kits using actual Lego bricks. You can get all the parts lists, the instructions, etc online very easily. For minifigures, if you're a parent be careful with having small kids put them in their mouths. I've seen some figures paint application smear or rub off. These were a few years back but now they seem better but also be aware of toxicity in these Chinese products too. Better to safe than sorry with your children.
Not everyone has the money to pay 500 dollars for a lego death star. Lets say your kid really wants one and has been asking you for years but you can't afford one, wouldn't you buy a cheaper version of it so that they can enjoy the experience?
@@ryanqian08n23 No, I wouldn't. I did this with my son. Which is something adult lego fans need to hear sometimes. With large Lego kits, I told him we can't get it now, but if we save a little each week, each month we can get you that large set for Xmas. We did it with the Millennium Falcon. The UCS $800. We put away $20 a week, $80 a month and in 10 months, I ordered the set for Xmas. I didn't eat out as much each week, cooked at home, and put that money aside and in a few months we got the kit. I just sacrificed. It's a good learning lesson. So now, he's older and when he want's something expensive, instead of getting the 'knock off', he's learned to sacrifice, save and get that item he wants.
I've never once considered any of them 'fake lego' because they're just alternate brands. if they put a lego logo on their bricks they would be fake lego. They dont, thus they arent.
What are some differences you think I missed?? Comment below!
Gillybricks fake lego has the word Fake in it while LEGO doesn't
Lego knockoffs' bricks are typically weaker than real Lego.
i'd be very curious what is the difference between the plastic composition. I guess it's no surprise to anyone that knockoff things made in china can have serious health and safety issues, especially plastic ones (let's be clear, not because they are made in china or by chinese people, but because they are made by greedy people who only care about money). Lego on the other hand is made in a very clean, highly controlled industrial environment (one of the reason of high cost) and is tested for safety, after all it's a toy, kids will surely put in their mouth (and adults too if their hands are full while building)...try things like heating them, melting them, compressing them, freezing them, putting them into acidic and alkali solutions, rubbing them together continuously to simulate wear and tear, etc...don't think anyone has done that and you got plenty pieces to sacrifice a few in the name of science...
Gillybricks well, lepin is shit
The Quality is much better in Lego, specially in the printings.
I remember watching Star plan the furce ewakens
Hahaha XD
No, you mean the “FARCE” awakens
@@dr.coomer2988 That's more like it!
Maybe that would have been a better film...
Not as good as “Star Wnrs: The Mandarin Warrior”
Lepin is genius, they don't even need to pay for assembly, the customer does that for them. They just need the plastic molds and some printers.
And the ant suicide nets.
That’s China for you. Steal ideas while claiming how superior you are.
How did they not pattend
I bought an off brand Lego Hogwarts Castle. Got all 6,000+ pieces in numbered bags, only one was broken (which was easy to replace). The set looks exactly like the set bought from Lego would look like, except I saved $260.
dont buy from them ever again pls
@@rustylarry7465 Why?
@@RoseLikesFootball its infringing copyright, dont support knockoffs. the minifigure is actually trademarked by lego also thats why you dont see megabloks or kre-o use that design.
@@rustylarry7465 I really couldn’t care less
@@RoseLikesFootball fair game, its a free market anyway.
Star Wnrs is short for Star Wieners btw
Don't forget star *_WARTS_* lmao.
This sounds a bit like a advertising for lepin
hes a lepin youtuber check his channel XD
@@tanauanbrianangeloc2684 true, didn't even notice🤦♂️😂
$100 for a super star destroyer?! I'm very tempted
Johnl Lyons I paid $550 for my Lego SSD. $100 for a knock off does not sound bad at all.
Johnl Lyons I'm tempted as fuck
Johnl Lyons Paid $200 for UCS Slave I. I still question my sanity.
Johnl Lyons same here, nobody will look at stud logo when they see awesome SSD on my shelf! and bulding plesure is the same i bet 😉
Areios Bleidd Don't be fooled.
The discontinued Lego sets are now much too expensive to be bought as kids' toys. For example the Imperial Star Destroyer from 2014 then cost about 150$ (already expensive), but now has doubled in price in the so called "aftermarket" in Europe. When Lego thus chooses to not to satisfy the demand, and facilitate that toys become investments or collector's items for adults instead, they are begging for someone to meet the demand for TOYS. Everybody would be happy to support Lego and get their superior original quality rather than a fake set, but Lego chose not to meet that demand, and now they can feel the backlash. I hope it's not too late for them to change their strategy.
I know this is incredibly old but same with Mattel. Mega Construx sets are in shelves for like 6 months before they’re gone. So us collectors gotta buy fast before the next wave
Yeah, I've seen that set sell for over $2,000 now. I'll probably never sell my set, even though I've had to build and rebuild it it 3 times (its in pieces currently), because the HORRIBLY designed stand/base falls apart and the whole damn ship tips over and has fell from a height of 6 feet twice and shattered. Lego was nice enough to replace all the stand pieces, but its weak point is the black/blue pins that go in the technic bricks. I think when I rebuild it, for a 4th and HOPEFULLY final time, I'm going to just go ahead and Gorilla Glue all the base/stand pieces together...............
Lepin is a knockoff while Lego is a Ripoff. That's the difference.
aeterna789 Sir, that is the best comment on this video
aeterna789 pretty much. I don't buy either😂
Lauren Shepherd ehhh,you should buy Lego though,you can find Legos sets more detailed then Lepin,still,just a suggestion :)
aeterna789 u made my day sir
They're not cheap but they're not a ripoff either.
As Ole Kirk Christiansen would say: "Only the best is good enough."
I couldn't agree more!!!
thats why legos marketing and product planing sucks. the quality went down since they produce in some place somewhere probably in the lepin factory
Tim Skovbølle Holst dansker?
Richard Tickler Absolute bullshit my friend, the quality of a product isn't determined by the location of the factory but by the factory itself. I have recieved many lego sets that were made in China and they are exactly the same as the ones from Danmark, Lego knows what they are doing and if you ask me, the quality of their piece has gone up.
And that's why the company went bankrupt
Since I started building models from Lepin, Decool, and Jisi...etc a year ago, I realized that I've spent too much money on LEGO for the past decades. Personally I think these "fake" brands provide opportunities for kids from less-wealthy families/countries to access the same level of fun and experience.
I dissagree
@@dylan9382 that's your opinion...lol btw seems like you pop up a lot and guarantee you have no experience with Lepin
@@Kolonol1 i personally like lepin. im hopefully getting a republic dropship with at-ot for my birthday! i don't come from a family wealthy enough to spend 1000 dollars for the real deal so i'm glad we have these alternatives. (don't feel bad for me as i still live a good life and we do in fact have money. just not enough to spend it on lego)
@@Duckbusinessman oh no I agree with you 100%....I have the millennium falcon Superstar destroyer two Star destroyers the tainted four the imperial shuttle and the slave one.... All Lepin... And you know the funny part? After a few years my dark red and brown Legos began to get brittle and break... Never broken a Lepin...
@@Kolonol1 i didnt reply in an attack actually! sorry for misunderstandings. i actually replied to agree. i'm just getting into lepin and i feel like a lot of my christmases we're wasted on somewhat expensive lego sets that in reality just expansive based on branding. but now i can actually enjoy playing with affordable things that i once thought only rich people could have
Very interesting. While I prefer original Lego bricks, I really like the more streamlined building instructions. It's maddening to have a whole page for one piece.
8: the quality of minifigures: hands, arms, legs, heads, and helmets...
I remember when I was a kid, I loved going to any store and get a lego set, but now the sets are so expensive and Im unabble to expend those ammounts of money. I still have my old legos in my room, and some old sets from the time of the prequels that I got from the flee markets.
something tells me that if it wasn't for scalpers buying lego sets to sell for a profit, there would be less of a market for bootlegs.
But Resale value, my friend. For collecting!
If Lego just would produce all lego parts also as spare parts the normal people wouldn´t care about scalpers bc they could just buy all models for a bit more than listet price.
@Mitch Hirt something lies to you, and you are gullible enough to believe it. the bootlegs are mainly of sets still in production, and there aren't that many "scalpers" - far less than there are selling antique cars in good condition, for example.
@j v the problem is that you can't buy these sets from Lego anymore because they are discontinued. That's the reason why I'm okay with buying the lepin sets. The difference between the Lego sets and classic cars is that a classic car is no longer produced and there's nobody out there making an alternative version for sale. If you want a '58 Buick you have to buy it from someone who got the car, then invested thousands of dollars in the maintenance, upkeep, and restoration of the car. With legos someone went out and bought the super star destroyer for $400 and then stuck it in a closet for 10 years and now they're trying to sell it for $3000. I should have to pay 3k for a $400 set that I couldn't buy 10 years ago because I was homeless at the time when there's another company that has made it available for a more reasonable price? If Lego re-released the set I would buy it from them but they haven't. They already made their money on the set. I'm not paying some speculator 10 times the original price when there is an alternative. Buying a set from a speculator doesn't benefit the Lego company and buying a knock-off of a discontinued product doesn't hurt Lego either.
@@mattm.159 that's life...
Thanks man! Always wanted the Ewok Village and I was considering buying the Lepin version. Good to know that the end results aren’t too different! Another main difference is that the minifig heads are slightly off in their printing, like they don’t look accurate to the actual LEGO ones
The only time I’m buying Lepin is for retired Lego sets ;)
I want the death star
Same, just got microfighter second series LAAT and ARC.
Same. It’s also better to get Lepin for larger more expensive LEGO sets that are similar quality
I got the republic gunship
Diego Brando i bought it for 500€
I would only consider buying Lepin for the discontinued sets, as my mode of thinking is that Lego has already made their money from the official version and would not lose out on revenue on sets they no longer produce.
The only people who will make a profit from official discontinued sets are those who resell, and I don't think I have to go into detail on how outrageous the prices can get. But any set currently available I will buy Lego's version. I honestly would feel better about it if Lepin didn't make current sets as well, but that will never happen.
i bought the Lepin Drop Ship 75021 and it is outstanding for a fake, you cannot see any difference
That's a great way to think about it. Lego chooses not to produce certain sets after a certain amount of time. So then if someone else wants to keep making a comparable one, why not buy it. I'd buy it from Lego if they'd sell it, but they aren't interested in taking my money so I'll give it to whoever is.
Absolutely @Mike
This is the way
Tldr, Stuff for display like a huge ship, fake is better. But if you want to play with it (like move the pieces around alot) get real since fake bricks wear out in a few days.
Good video mate. I have the Lepin Death Star arriving tomorrow. Very excited.
I bought the Lepin UCS Millennium Falcon, it didn't come with 17 numbered bags as the Lego set does, it came with about 150 bags, and they WERE numbered. I had 6-10 bags per "bag", they were numbered. So for "bag" three I had the ~10 bags numbered 3 which were basically pre sorted for my convenience.
Gotta hand it to lepin, they ARE getting better.
I fought the UCS Millennial Flacon, with didn't come 6-10 numbered bags as which Lepin set does, it came with about 17 bags, and they WAS numbered. I had 6-10 bags per "bag", they weren't numbered, except for the good ones. So for "bag" three I had the ~10 bags numbered 5 which were basically pre snorted for my convenience.
Gotta hand it to lepin, they ARE getting droogier.
I believe that the CRAZY expensive sets arenlt worth the money. I feel fine with buying the UCS knockoffs, but lower priced $100ish sets, LEGO deserves that money.
True
You forgot to mention that lego pays the licenses and that adds up to the total cost of the kit, that's expensive
Pls explain me why the new HarryPotter sets are more valuble than a lot of lego city sets?
@@berndarndt9924 because it is a license
@@InazumaDash I know that they are licensed. Its just that some of them are cheaper than some city sets and city sets are not licensed.
Are you being obtuse
This was a great video! It was kool when you mentioned it had no LEGO logo on the brick studs thanks for doing this video cuz i learned something new about fake LEGO :)
Very impressive. I watched a few of your videos and I am suprised. I am playing with Lego for almost 40 years by now and I never heard of a company called Lepin till today. Very helpful videos. Keep it going!
Thanks, good video. This looks like the sets for people who just like to build and don't care about collector value, like me.
Lmao I got the ucs millennium falcon for 15 pounds or 20 dollars
A cheap Chinese version 😂😂😂
I love how controversial people get about Lego... live and let build, if I'm building a yellow house, and all I need is a basic 2 stud brick, if I don't have it in yellow in Lego but I do in mega bloks, that's okay
Besides the extra weapons, knockoffs also usually have at least 4 extra hands, and several extras of the smallest pieces.
unfortunately there will always be a market due to the cost of LEGO
unfortunately there will always be a market due to THIEVES, Liars and unethical people.
I am a thief who is unethical...Lepin baby!
Im gonna make a band...zed lepin.
j v liars? Lego are scanners. Why Would a bunch of cheap plastic cost 80$ or more.
Yeeetus Like he says in the video, It costs money for LEGO to design and develop these kits in the first place, not to mention paying for the license properties like Star Wars, or a Porsche or a
Bugatti vehicle. This gets translated to the consumer.
@@jv-lk7bc FORTUNATELY, the market for bootlego provides for those who aren't drowning in cash and consumers who have at least a modicum of rationality in choosing identical products for the cheapest price. The rhetoric that "Lepin is counterfeit trash" becomes stale once actual Lego starts to eat at your wallet. To the rational consumer, the cheapest product is the best option.
LEGO vs Lepin; A Star Wrns Story
A good top 7! Well done! I went for a top 11 instead :)
the fake sets are usually virtually indistinguishable from the real, but a few things you forgot to include is that the print on minifigs and printed bricks can be a little off center (though it's rare), that not all knockoff brands will include the decals, and that even the better knockoff brands sometimes have heat-damaged parts like a shriveled up arm or a warped plate
I live in Vietnam and have so many sets! it's just nice cos you can get 5 or 6 huge sets for the price of one official sets, and it's easy to find rare/old sets - I just got almost the entire 2014 arctic collection and it's just perfe t
You didn't mention the fit of the blocks to each other. Counterfiets fall apart or don't assemble well.
They are good enough for display, or you can glue them, honestly, i wouldnt mix lepin pieces with original lego pieces
@Jiggly lepin is getting good.
@Jiggly i mean other fake lego brands wich still exist. Just check aliexpres
@Jiggly just checked. I still can buy a millenium falcon for 38 euro on aliexpress.
not in my experience, i bought a lepin ucs millium falcon (the newer one) and it holds together fine, the only difference was some parts were tighter than normal, which might be better for the long run.
2:45 Lepin must use gutter oil instead of light sweet crude like Lego does
Leipin instructions remind me of how Legos use to be when I was growing up. Like them already.
Lowkey want to buy some lepon sets to make my clone army bigger and maybe finally have a UCS set. Its tempting but I don’t want to have fake pieces and sets in my collection 😬
Mate As a grown collector of Lego sets Myself I find lepin just GODLIKE store. They surelly have some problems but thats not a problem to fix them when you have Bircklink or Ebay. And as for me I usually Cover 90% of the VISUAL Lepin stuff with REAL Lego. For example buy - Super star destroyer for 110$(Lepin) and Replace Huge plate bricks with original Lego for 30$. Now you have Set of Super star Destoyer Visually built of Lego bricks and Costing you 140$ ...not 1000+$. Easy...
Yup! You can totally do that.
My problem is the wannabe lego investors hiking up the price.
I just want to build the sets i want, or create my own ideas, preferably as cost effective as possible.
There are some projects on the shelf for decades because the parts I need are near impossible to get cheap, or i gave to use several Bricklink online stores to get several.
The Chinese copies solve the money issues.
I am more into veteran and classics, as those are the models I wanted, or had, and later received.
There are these pre-miniland sets or partial sets I want to restore, and also create from scratch. I think it called Town Plan.
I have not met anybody who collects pre-miniland Lego... find that fascinating.
With Lepin it's nice not having to flip the page all the time or I'm just lazy :)
Older Lego sets had instructions set up the same way.
TX you for this detailed video...
"Only the best is good enough" sounds suspiciously like the Everton football club motto in 1878 "Nil Satis Nisi Optimum" meaning "Nothing but the best is good enough". The irony that even the Lego founder had made similar ideas to others.
Me personally I like the price of lepin
Yep, why buy lego when lepin is 1/10th legos price!
What are you going to tell the family can no afford "real" lego ?
When you want to make the scene from the beginning of new hope in lego but you have the Collectors Rebel ship but you have the normal star destroyer: "Um isn't the rebel ship supposed to fit inside here?"
*Sees price differences*
WELL LEPIN YOU JUST GOT YOURSELF A NEW CUSTOMER!
What is wrong with some people? They are both brands who entertain kids as these reasons Lepin seems better but they are a tiny bit less detailed like 0.1% less detailed you might have grown up with Lego but Jesus Christ calm down I just came here to comment how people are mad about children's toys just chose one and keep your opinion.
why worry about toxicity? poisoning your kids doesn't matter if its CHEAPER!
#8, building something with non LEGO will get you kicked out of LEGO fan events.
Lepin is great for retired sets, as the pricing for real lego retired sets is WAY higher than it should be. I can see people buying Lepin for only retired sets, but for anything else, there is no excuse for buying Lepin or any other fake brand!
There is an excuse considering sets like the UCS 2019 Star Destroyer is 4500 pieces and costs 700$ or you can buy a knockoff set with 12000 pieces with 10x the detail for 500$... Lego charges way too much money for big sets nowadays and its starting to get out of hand, They also try their best to get a monopoly on sets when they would probably make more money selling the trademark and copyrights
Well one thing is for sure, Lego are disgraceful with their pricing.
Disagree. Copying someone's design bypasses the R/D that the creating company has to spend, so of course the copy will be cheaper. But what is also important to note is that the chinese knockoffs are most-likely made in sweatshops with little wage to the workers. Lego employees are paid (I would think) a very fair salary. Does this matter to someone simply looking to save money and doesn't care about brand? Nope. But to simply state Lego is disgraceful with their pricing is short-sighted and uneducated.
Brian gets it.
Brian Westfield most Lego assembly is automated not a ton of people actually work in the factory if only to make sure the machines are lubed and running well. Theres not that much painstaking toil as far as craftsmanship goes by Lego anyway and not a ton of factory employee overhead for the price they charge. Second and most importantly. Many people who buy these sets live in impoverished parts of Asia, Europe, and the middle east, where the wages at work are abysmal, yet still they want to do something nice for their kids, and since some Lego sets could take a entire weeks paycheck or more they get lepin for their kids. I say good on I'm for doing what they can for their families.
tom Wilson let’s not sugarcoat the issue. As noble of a cause as you try to portray, They are stealing Lego designs to make a profit.
Brian Westfield I mean if all u want is the set for a cheap price it doesn't really apply to u what they are trying to do so it doesn't really matter to the average LEGO builder and collector
I posted this on another video, but it bears repeating...
What I get from these:
If you are an adult Lego builder you won't like these.
If you are a kid who just wants to play with Legos then go with the cheaper option.
If you are a connoisseur of Lego then you would never buy Lepin. For everyone else - especially those without the disposable income, Lepin is a great alternative.
Much more differences, a few: Quality of production plastic is much higher with lego, the blocks are much more consistant with lego, the plastic is much more durable, etc
Great video as reference when buying knockoff legos. Investing on legos are expensive. Luckily this video is very informative
I actually prefer unnumbered bags. It lets me use my brain and build instead of always being handheld by Lego. I collect a lot of OFFICIAL Mega Bloks sets whose bags are never numbered yet some people say mega bloks is a knock off of Lego but in reality it isn't. Lego can't own or copyright a brick design just like Boeing cant copyright the shape of a plane wing. Plus Lego initially stole the whole Idea of bricks from another company decades ago. But now they act like they own it and everyone else who makes toys with bricks is not genuine. I'm not saying lepin isn't a knockoff of Lego, They definitely are and I think they are doing a damn fine job of recreating Lego sets that would normally be out of the average person's price range. I will only buy lepin sets for the old UCS sets and Batwing. But all other stuff I still would get Lego.
20 years ago, MB was indeed a knock-off of LEGO. But after TLG sued them for infringing on their current-at-the-time copyrights, MegaBloks started getting better by not copying everything LEGO did. MB are known to carry the Halo and Star Trek themes. TLG does not... In this way, they are trying not to step on each other's toes.
I still don't like non-LEGO as I have zero trust in their products. TLG has proven their plastic bricks over the last 60 years. No other company can claim that.
Dark Scorpion except airbus copies McDonnell Douglas and Boeing
@@TS0513 Really?
@4:10, There's a reason why LEPIN and other rip-off clones are "cheaper" compared to LEGO brand.
1) TLG spends a lot of money on R&D for sets. They research how a theme is received by the target audience. They have to design the product through multiple phases and committees before it ever leaves the factory. Well educated and experienced (graphics, engineer, industrial) designers are not cheap. The LEGO Group also works closely with big companies to get permission to sell licensed themes such as Star Wars.
LEPIN simply steals the hard work of TLG and sells what TLG proves as popular. I doubt LEPIN and others have bothered to ask Disney if they can sell Star Wars themed products.
2) TLG has very high standards for its products. The tolerances for how each brick is made are very low. This is why parts from the late 1950's will work with parts made yesterday.
LEPIN doesn't really care if their tolerances are off so much... the parts either don't stick or become too hard to separate. (Clutch power.) This is really evident in the miniFigure knock-offs. And the Technic ripoffs show this problem in the gears and pins.
3) TLG can certify their products are not toxic to your kids. If, by chance, a child swallows a LEGO part, they will not get sick. Just be sure the part passes through the digestive system...
LEPIN, on the other hand, has not demonstrated safety in their products. I refuse to let non-LEGO products in my kids' hands. I would not want to do their safety-testing with my kids. I seriously doubt they care if a child swallows their parts and gets sick or dies as a result of ingesting toxic plastic parts.
4) As you alluded in this video, there is an aftermarket for LEGO elements and sets. If you kept a set for a while but got tired of it or needed cash to buy a new set, you could sell an older (popular) set and buy that new LEGO set. The same cannot be said of the rip-off clones. Yes, LEGO can be expensive. But, if you plan it well enough, you can sell old sets and buy new sets. LEPIN would basically become (best case) recycled or (most likely) sent to a nearby landfill as waste.
How much does Lego pay you for posting? I guess you get paid by the hour to write novels of shilling.
MC Malzahar I guess you wasted money on knockoffs right?
For god's sake some morons keep posting this bullshit about Lepin bricks being toxic, no they are not, someone who works in a lab actually tested them to profesional standards, and found them to be 100% safe... www.reddit.com/r/lepin/comments/5jpenk/testing_for_lead_substance_on_lepin_bricks/ also here ua-cam.com/video/w_dqS2zxS2w/v-deo.html and here ua-cam.com/video/sHIWOG_iujQ/v-deo.html
So, you're talking bullshit. Nonsense on the internet, what a surprise... *sigh*
Ultimately, I'm not too bothered about Lego's market research (how much does it really cost to work out that Star Wars is popular), I'm happy to replace the odd defective or missing brick as that's usually very easy to do, I don't have kids and I don't need to sell Lepin sets because I can buy 10 of them for the price of 1 lego set.
It all depends what you enjoy about Lego. Do you enjoy the market side of things - collecting them, keeping track of the prices, selling them on for a profit etc or do you simply enjoy building sets? If it's the former, there is only 1 option. If it's the latter, you'll have more fun building 10 sets than you will building 1.
stfu drone
"check instructions"
If the set isn't a copy of an official Lego set
I've only bought a couple but what is consistently bad across the Lepin sets is the pieces where tolerances matter. Minifig legs and arms are loose, the studshooters don't work, the technic axles fit loosely and have very little friction.
lego has a patent for the bags with numbers. Sad and stupid, but true. Noone can number their bags unless they pay to lego
Lepin, Megablocks, Construblocks, lele.... and all the brick-based toys (including aliexpress fakes)
Patent info (google it):
"Method of packaging toy building elements and packaging for exercising the method"
US 6554675 B1
Victor García that's really dumb 😂
The latest sets number their bags how can a you patent numbering a bag? That will never hold up in a court let alone a Chinese court.
Lepin ignores other companies' patents and copyrights. They're ripping off the entire product, why would they care about bag numbering?
Also, Cobi now number their bags.
How does Lepin get away with licensing, why doesn't Disney sue its ass off for copying the vehicles, even if they change it to "star plan" or some other shit?
Supreme Leader Smeagol The Big Problem: it's China. Last year Lego had taken legal action against Lepin, but it could be a long time before it's resolved because it's China and the Chinese don't care.
The Candy Man yeah I know Lego has sued many ripoff brands and failed, but I'm wondering about why Disney hasn't taken action against them for copying the Star Wars vehicles
China is also very different from the west... where in the west, it is completely illegal to copy a product, the culture in China is almost the opposite. Once a product is out there, you are free to copy it (its cultural). For example, they copy phones and cars (although they dont copy the cars very well atm). BMW attempted to sue when the X5 was copied and they failed as Chinese courts are bias.
Absolutely right. This comes mainly from the fact they all look the same, so it's not a shame to be a clone of other people in China or any yellow asian country. + China is officially, and has been actually at least for almost 4 generations a communist country, so they are used to share everything. To own private goods is quite a new thing for them. So, protecting and owning ideas, you could easily guess that's it's far from theire culture
If they sue, it'll be in the hands of China courts. And China doesn't want Lepin to lose and frankly neither do I imo.
2:04 Wow Star Plan one of my favorite movies :D
Nice joke 🤣
For out of print sets it looks like a sane option. For stuff that's still avilable I don't see why I would want cloudy plastic windows or bricks with less clutch power.
Tyler Tinsley You can replace the cloudy pieces with actual Lego parts.
You can replace (and I have) any defective or substandard parts with actual legos
I swear lego would make more money if they dropped their prices to with in lepins range and did not retire sets. Lower prices would allow lego to make more money by sets sale volume. I have met so many parents who are scared away from buying lego because of the high price's, when will lego learn!
Especially with today's economy. People are broke and can't afford to spend their entire paycheck on a *toy*.
U thing they just produce a set? That they don't pay marvel or disney or lucas for the rights to use their names or produce their models? Why dont u go buy some fake chinese eggs and eat them as they are producing fakes egggs and vegetables and and other toxic stuff. What is your guarantee, aside of quality, that their plastic is not toxic.
Not enough money to buy the real thing? Then you don't need it.
Lego didn't nearly go bankrupt in '04 because it had "too many pieces in too many colors" lol
You seem to be the misinformed one man, you got half the story right though, Lego did go through a very hairy situation in the early 2000s which cause the original CEO to hand in his letter of resignation and allow a new younger CEO to step in, and the main issue that younger CEO found when he stepped in was most certainly not "too many pieces in too many colors", it was the fact that Lego was hemorrhaging money in way too many areas, so they were forced to sell one of their Legoland Theme Park locations in order to give them some financial breathing room, which would allow them to step back an analyze how they could remedy Lego's dire situation in the early '00s.
The main issue they landed on was that Lego had stretched so far from their original vision, the very thing that made them unique when they first started in the 50s... and that was Town/City building. That's why the first thing the CEO did was enact the "Lego City" line which reinvigorated the Lego company once again. Simple City buildings and vehicles that resembled their real life counterparts. This did simplify their need for specialize bricks, but it didn't mean that their mission was to revert to less variations of bricks, they would actually go on to create even MORE specialized bricks for a lot of the buildings and vehicles themselves.
So no, Lego never had an issue with "too many bricks", even if they did indeed have a bankruptcy scare in the early 00s.
Now I agree with you, it is counterintuitive for Lego to keep producing sets, retiring them is naturally the way to go, but I think that it wouldn't hurt Lego at all if they allowed people to order some of the retired sets directly from them at a discounted price, and maybe ship them without box to save on shipping, which would relive the market of scalpers, allow people to attain some of the more specialized pieces in older sets, and let them continue to profit from older sets without the need to constant continuous growth and creation from their own engineers.
We've also got PLENTY of people on Lego Ideas who are simply happy to get their creation chosen by Lego, now if Lego would make their Ideas process a bit less critical, and allow some of the less popular creations to get passed, they could simply let us, the consumers, buy those Fan Created mocs for a discounted price, sans box art.. etc, just the parts in a clear bag with instructions, and everyone would benefit from it.
@Hisham
Not enough money to buy food? Seems like you don´t need it. Good thinking boy.
@@berndarndt9924 food is essential, lego is not. That's what I meant. So you don't need a stolen lepin crap to survive, if you do, then go buy their crappy toxic vegetables. Don't twist words.
Well of COURSE Lego is way more expensive. They have to develop these sets, which is an expensive process. They pay a ton of licensing fee. They do awesome events for their fans. They have to do advertising etc.etc.etc. and they have some awesome customer support.
All these knockoffs do is copy and sell.
Last but not least, what about the quality ? My brother is 50, and his kids played with a Lego collection he started, and in a few years his grandkids will be able to play with it. The quality of Lego is out of this world. Can you name any other toy, that can be played with for 45 fucking years, and it is still fully functional and still looks good ? Even the colors are still mostly ok, except a few who where too long and often on the sun, but even they are not that bad, just a little off.
Do you know if these knockoffs can do that ? Will they even survive 10 years ? Cause I cannot imagine they care as much about quality as Lego does. Can you call them when 5 years down the line you miss a few peaces of a set, and buy them again for a few cents, so you have a complete set again ?
Yeah, well fortunately you brother started a collection however many years ago. You're kind of putting the cart before the horse here. Other people are just getting into this, or in my case going back to it. They don't have a prebuilt collection to work from. And I'm not going to spend 3k on some set that was retired two years prior. I'm sure the same goes for parents buying this stuff for their kids.
I had legos when I was a kid, 4 of those big rubbermaid bins full, but I remember the strain it put on the pocketbook to get them. Thankfully my parents had decent jobs and could afford to buy sets once in a while (usually b-days and Christmas).
If you want to spend oodles of money to be some purist, that's fine, that's your thing, enjoy. For the rest of us 3k is really fucking pricey and I'm sure as hell not spending it on a set of legos if I had it, especially when I can buy the same set produced by lepin for a hundred bucks now.
Will they last forever? They're plastic, I'm fairly sure they'll last for some time. I've got the Vestas wind turbine (something you could never buy unless you shelled out a few months of paychecks for) and city tower crane as is and both are really friggen sturdy and handle just as well as the lego crawler crane I have.
In the end I think it's going to come down to purist vs everyone else. There's always that issue in anything. Praise lego as much as you want (I love'em too), you just need to face reality that lots of people don't have alot of spare cash floating around to dump on toys.
Don'y they also manufacture Lego bricks all in europe?
As longevity goes, Lego just use the same ABS plastic as the knockoffs do. Their strength was the precision and design. But the chinese manufacturers started to catch up in quality, while they still don't have interests in genuine designs though. Is it unethical to copy the Lego sets? Yes, of course! But Lego forces people to buy knockoff brands by their insane pricing. Sure, licensing themes and designing complex models is expensive. But inhouse themed sets are (and were since ever) still expensive as hell, despite that they don't need any license. Where are the cheap bags of parts? Like the buckets of basic bricks, but this time with bags of themed parts or technic sets without license or modelling expenses. Most kids aren't really interested in their designs either. They just want a bunch of parts of the specific theme.
Lego could also just sell all parts without developing, licensing costs but they don´t want that. They want to overcharge you on every brick you buy.
And btw some StarWars/HarryPotter sets have more Bricks/Minifigures/mass than unlicensed sets. And for developing, they have a community with tons of ideas, that shouldn´t be the issue.
Why are you so triggered? I think everyone knows all of this but I think it's good that people and their children who are less fortunate or just more strapped for cash can enjoy something that really is priced way too high. They're fricken little plastic bricks that probably cost 0.01 cents to produce a piece....
My son just finished building the Lepin Voltron Robot that had 2600 pieces. All the bags came labeled to match the Lego bags, but there were sob labeled bags. 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 2-1, 2-2 etc all the way up to group 16. Good quality and good build.
At least lepin gave us the flying Dutchman when Lego didn't.
They are not "knockoff," they are ripoff!
Technically speaking, it's the other way around
The definition of "rip off" is a bad financial transaction
A "Knock off" is a cheap copy, or counterfeit without permission.
Its amazing eh, long live cheap ripoff Lego. Whoooop
righteous, mon
Paul Valentine I absolutely despise rip off brands. the real makers try hard and put their blood ,sweat and tears into their work while lazy pricks just copy them!I hope lego sues their ass
I love Lepin. Bought about 10 sets in the last month. Happy !!!
I would like to ad. That lepin has become better. this video is 2 years old. And that Lepin bags are numbered today.
This video is what convinced me to buy lepin. To this day I'm sad I haven't invested in it earlier.
You missed out one important point: Lepin was design by Chopin since 1839
I got the lepin town hall and it was cool and the funny part is that it came with 5 stacks of guns. Wow lepin :)
Someone gonna shoot up the town hall
If the Chinese made it, it comes with extra guns.
wow.
LEL ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS LOOK AT THE BRAND NAME
SIMPLE
I have had my UCS X Wing from Lepin for 2 years now and no complain to do
Cool vid - thanks
Everyone should boycotting the Lepin brand !
Nop. Btw I just bought a Lepin truck and you cant tell the difference lol
LEGO moved production to China in recent years and how these knock-offs are being manufactured seems to be whomever made the LEGO factory in China decided to see who else would pay for a "LEGO" factory of their own or the plans got into the wrong hands. LEGO uses specialized injection molding which would be expensive to replicate if you didn't already have the plans for their machines and based on LEPINS injection holes in identical spots, they're using the same machines but removed the LEGO logo from their molds.
Well, Lego dun fucked up lol
If Lego employees were paid with big Lego star wars sets I would apply in a heartbeat
GREAT VIDEO ..VERY INTERESTING
Lepin also pays no licences to Disney for their Star Wars sets.
That's actually a plus as far as Disney is concerned in my opinion. They are destroying this series. The first two movies were, IN MY OPINION, the bestwo movies ever made. Now that I think of it, George Lucas kinda trashed the series before Disney got a hold on it.
WilliBond0007 regardless of your opinion, lepin is stealing intellectual property.
I know, ... if you wanto talk aboutrue theft of intellectual property, perhaps we should talk to the Tolkiens, whom I believe have sued those who made those six movies and have not paid them. THAT is true theft. I feel horrible for Lego, but consider the slime at the helm of Disney to be the lowest sort of burglars.
WilliBond0007 they sold the rights for a quarter million dollars, and after the movies became a huge succes, they wanted more due to a equivoval paragraph in the contract. Sounds more like being greedy and is only losely comparable to lego vs lepin.
Well nobody should pay Disney for anything. Disney has destroyed star wars. That's why I don't even buy the knockoffs of Farce Awakens sets. (I may buy a Millennium Falcon one day, but only because they don't have a version from the OT. I'll probably burn the Rey and Finn figures tho)
i dont think lepin has a good/accurate it doesnt look like lego. and the plastic is not that strong as lego.
Same plastic. It's just ABS and the "Lego-ness" is just because the quality of the dies. But as they get better the sets do also get better, I can attest to that. Lepin a few years ago was not as good as it is now.
The only 2 reasons I don't buy lepin are that you dont get that feeling that you built this really cool Lego set, you get the feeling that you built a clone of the the thing you want. Also, i got some fake Lego from relatives, and they are super hard to put together and just overall lower quality.
#1: discolored parts
The hell with Lego, It's so expensive, firts time in life I can afford something Lego-like was lepin and I have no regrets 😃
1. The intructions
they have different logos in the first page.
duuhh
There's another difference visible in those shots with all of the models together: Lepin's x-wing's wings don't stay together. That would bug the crap out of me
When you add the vowels back to STAR WNRS, it reads STAR WEINERS
Do you think the lego logo missing is that bad?
I like to think that "STAR WNRS" stands for "Star Winners"
Very good video!
Proud owner of three Lepin sets: Cafe Corner, Starbucks and the Dino museum. I buy all available sets from Lego, often directly from their home page (Parisian restaurant, pet shop...and all creators after them, the Ghostbuster HQ, the Simpsons stuff etc. pp.), but these retired sets, or these awesome Lego ideas sets which were never put into production...Lepin is the way!
Lego is soooo
Much better
Yes
It’s also so much more expensive but true
Yes
I don't know the entire empire fleet sounds so much better than just one piece
i have a bunch of lego trains,love em,worth a ton of money too,go lego!!!!!
One big difference: Lepin is crap, Lego is quality. Simple as that.
thanks
That can't be true, otherwise clear bricks would be impossible. Also having a few LEGO parts that are broken, they aren't black along the break.
That is 100% false. LEGO, as well as LEPIN if I had to guess, use colored plastic. There is no paint on any lego brick.
Actually I realize the old chrome gold/silver bricks were painted, but it would be virtually impossible to make them reflective if they were just colored plastic. Even then though, one could argue that the chroming process counts as a coating and is different from paint.
You mean if I break a Logo brick it will be black inside?
LEGO bricks also click and hold together better because of the accuracy and better plastic quality.
Great Video, thank you...!!!
Guys, stop hating! I've been a lego buyer since I was like 8, but they totally lost it when pricing their products. If you're some kind of millionaire then go and spend 3000 dollars on a set, but understand that some people prefer spending that amount on different stuff and paying only 100 bucks for that same set. Lepin sucks because it copies Lego, yes, but among Lego's copies, is the best option!
Ruben Carrascal even though its a lot cheaper, that doesn't stop it from being wrong that Lepin have copied a Lego designers' hard work for their own benefit. That's what keeps me away, among other reasons.
Rubén Carrascal blame the governments they keep on increasing taxes
You don't NEED Lego, like food or drink.
And yes, Lego is expensive, that's why I mainly buy during season sales (up to -50%).
Also, second hand and garage sales can be a good bargon !
As for SW expensive sets, they're for collectors who can afford them.
I Like The Tantive 4 or evne the Death Star. I won't buy it.
Even the last Millenium Falcon, 140€ at least.
Lepin is cheaper, but weaker.
I got Minions and Spongebob sets by Megablock (5o% sales) for my kids.
It IS cheaper and less well finished. But it's OK !
No Lego set costs $3000 originally.
I've noticed on some the fake minifigs that their clutch on the joints at times are extremely loose.
On brick quality the clutch is good, but also some are too tight or loose. Very inconsistent.
The bricks too tend to have more noticeable scratches. Not all but mostly noticeable on black. Also the 'black' bricks sheen/texture is at times duller than Lego.
Like you said on instructions, some colors hard to figure out. I've even gotten primary colors (red, yellow, blue, etc) to differentiate other colors like black and grey. Very weird...lol.
I think if you're going with these other companies, go with product that Lego doesn't make. They have some unique products.
If it's an existing kit OR something that's retired, you can still piece together these kits using BrickLink, parts online like eBay or Lego.com themselves. You CAN build Lego kits using actual Lego bricks. You can get all the parts lists, the instructions, etc online very easily.
For minifigures, if you're a parent be careful with having small kids put them in their mouths. I've seen some figures paint application smear or rub off. These were a few years back but now they seem better but also be aware of toxicity in these Chinese products too. Better to safe than sorry with your children.
Not everyone has the money to pay 500 dollars for a lego death star. Lets say your kid really wants one and has been asking you for years but you can't afford one, wouldn't you buy a cheaper version of it so that they can enjoy the experience?
@@ryanqian08n23 No, I wouldn't. I did this with my son. Which is something adult lego fans need to hear sometimes.
With large Lego kits, I told him we can't get it now, but if we save a little each week, each month we can get you that large set for Xmas.
We did it with the Millennium Falcon. The UCS $800. We put away $20 a week, $80 a month and in 10 months, I ordered the set for Xmas.
I didn't eat out as much each week, cooked at home, and put that money aside and in a few months we got the kit.
I just sacrificed.
It's a good learning lesson. So now, he's older and when he want's something expensive, instead of getting the 'knock off', he's learned to sacrifice, save and get that item he wants.
nice vid! this was very useful
+Tinglesome ASMR thx!
I dont understand why LEGO doesn't just sue them 😐
Invader Pikachu China has different copyright laws
They did it didn't work
@@cheezybirb7810 China enforces no copyright laws. yet we allow them to remain in the WTO. because we're stupid.
Welp, Im getting Lepin now, see yall later.
thats smart
Nah its not moral but ok what ever works for you
I've never once considered any of them 'fake lego' because they're just alternate brands. if they put a lego logo on their bricks they would be fake lego. They dont, thus they arent.
I didn't even knew about fake or Lepin - I just grew up with Lego!!!