Aliexpress sells a lot of LEGO replicas, has anyone here bought one? I am wanting to know how the quality compares to LEGO?
Example products: https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20190815025633&SearchText=lego&switch_new_app=y
I'm sure it shouldn't be stored with regular LEGO bricks, but if these are treated as a separate product, can these replicas be used without any issues?
Edit: I have found an example of comparison in this YouTube video.
You might be interested in the excellent, hilarious and comprehensive Communist LEGO report. It tells you all you can expect, from the good brands to the bad brands. At a minimum, it'll get you rolling of your chair with laughter.
A summary taken from the document:
Brand List 2015
LEGO is a global brand and has been the subject of many copies over the years. The US company Tyco were the first with ‘Super Blocks’ in 1984, after LEGO’s brick patent expired in 1983. Almost every attempt at cloning has been inferior, mainly due to production costs being lower resulting in inferior grade materials and poor fitting pieces. Set design has generally varied from mediocre to rubbish. However, the recently invigorated factories of China have begun to churn out various LEGO clones. It’s worth noting that the potential Chinese domestic market is far, far larger than that of Europe and America combined. There are many Chinese companies making LEGO copies, with new ones starting up at an astounding rate. Minifig copying seems to be endemic, taking advantage of enormous demand for collectable box sets that LEGO cannot do due to contractual reasons. A brief trawl of the AliExpress export website finds a list of 50 companies making plastic building blocks, with probably at least half doing LEGO clones. Most if not all are based in Chenghai, the toy capital of China. Some companies appear to source their products from each other and subcontract, so working out exactly who makes which branded kits is not always straightforward. Many are of random quality and there is a lot of chaff and little wheat. The following is an incomplete list of some of the more actively promoted brands. By the time you read this, there will probably be more. It is interesting to note that many Far East websites list the keyword ‘Enlighten’ above ‘LEGO’.
Net: Some knock-off brands are getting really good and compare in quality with LEGO. Some are absolutely horrific. Some are complete cloners (and will likely disappear soon when the LEGO lawyers swoop in), some have found a niche that LEGO doesn't cover and will likely stay around.
I should post the answer as a comment to Phil B.'s post, but since it contains some useful content for the others, it will also be an answer.
First of all Phil B. thanks for the link, that's exactly what i was looking for and i will mark it as an accepted answer.
After reading the PDF, here is the summary of which blocks can we risk buying and which to avoid.
Best ones:
Company (average score)
Worst ones:
Thanks for checking the list
* * Every single point deduced twice for unfathomably dishonourable cloning .. They go as far as producing sets with the name 'The LELE Movie', obviously the same logo as 'The LEGO Movie' with just the first two letters cut and pasted over the 'GO' part.
I've bought some sci-fi military-themed sets from Gudi, and this is my opinion:
They seemed to have a quite good model designer in 2014-15: there are some sci-fi and military kits that actually look good. However, 2016 models marked a step backward, IMHO.
I blogged my adventures with Gudi here: http://bricks.lamboz.net/tag/gudi.html (in Italian, sorry!)
Lepin (rebranded to King) sets are very high quality, although Technic pieces can be a bit too loose or too tight. Decool is supposed to be better for Technic pieces. Bela is similar to Lepin / King. All three brands produce only clones of LEGO sets as far as I know.
XingBao is owned by the same company that produces Lepin / King sets, but all their sets are original designs. The quality is the same as that of Lepin / King sets.
Sembo is a pretty decent brand for smaller sets and sell mostly original designs. They do have some bigger sets, but those aren't the same quality, design-wise, as XingBao.
Quan Guan has some excellent military themed sets that look very similar to sets sold by Polish brand Cobi, although they aren't direct clones. Unlike aforementioned brands, however, these sets do contain some parts that don't have a LEGO equivalent.
Kazi & Englighten also produce some excellent military themed sets, although the brick quality of Kazi is not as good as that of the other brands in my experience.
Gudi's also pretty good for (original design) girly sets, similar to LEGO's "Friends" theme.
Most of the Chinese brands are pretty decent, really. There's a few bad apples here any there, but in my experience those are the exceptions rather than the rule.
My son got a LELE set and I am impressed! The quality is very good, the pieces are just like typical Lego bricks, and I believe this company is the best clone-brands company in China. The manual for assembling is perfect like LEGO, and all the pieces match perfectly. LEGO forgive me, but this LELE is a high-quality copy. And it has several languages stamped in the box, and as far as I know, they are spelled correctly (many Chinese products have lousy translations). I highly recommend it!
