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Update: February 14, 2010: Photos of the 2010 LEGO Harry Potter sets are available.

Huw over at Brickset attended the London Toy Fair today to look at LEGO’s upcoming offerings. No photography was allowed unfortunately. Huw made plenty of observations on the displayed sets.

A few notes on Huw’s observations:
* The Harry Potter launches towards the end of this year will be well-received, and The Burrows sounds like it’s what a lot of us were hoping for. I’m surprised at the number of new minifigs – two dozen or so.
* City Trains sounds very promising
* The Prince of Persia theme sounds awesome as well
* Hero Factory will probably be a suitable replacement for Bionicle
* Technic’s launches in August sound solid
* Also the collectible minifigs sound as good as they look. I’m not too happy that some will be rarer than others.

What I’m most excited about is this:

The three summer Atlantis sets look interesting: there’s another creature, a lobster I think, an underwater base and the ‘portal of Atlantis’. The pictures shown elsewhere of these are only a small part of them.

Full article Brickset

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Update: That didn’t take long, they sold out and removed the listing from LEGO Shop @ Home

If you or someone you know are looking to get into some of the more advanced Technic models, thanks to all of the clearance deals going on right now, you can get the 1100-piece 8063 Technic Tractor with Trailer for $49.98 at LEGO Shop @ Home. I’m not sure if it applies to other countries.

Features:
* 1100 pieces
* Tractor: Opening hood, turn gears, moving pistons
* Trailer: Turn gear tipping function
* Tractor measures 11″ x 7″ x 7.5″ (27cm x 17cm x 19cm)
* Trailer measures 15.5 inches long (39cm)

I’m considering picking one up – it’s a good color scheme in my opinion, and for $49.98, it’s a good selection of parts – good wheels, etc. (1100 parts!)

If that’s not something that interests you, if you are in the US, I’ve seen the 7632 Crawler Crane (from the City/Construction theme) for as low as $45. I picked up a 6243 Pirates Brickbeard’s Bounty for $49 + tax at a Target which is half off, and apparently they are also half-off at Walmart as well. I’ve also seen the 7686 Helicopter Transport for $20. I picked up a couple of 8402 Sports Car from the City/Traffic theme for under $5 at Target. It’s hit or miss what you’ll find, but right now is a good time to pick up some of these sets.

The Indiana Jones, Pirates, and Castle themes are all being discontinued/suspended for now (as well as older models from other themes) and some retailers are clearing them out right now to make way for the Atlantis theme, some of the new Space Police set, the Toy Story theme, and the upcoming Prince of Persia theme. If you are just looking to add to your spare parts, some of these deals are getting the price-per-piece down to around $0.04 or so.

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I was able to get my hands on a LEGO Technic 8048 Buggy this weekend. It’s a dual-purpose set, it can be built as either a buggy or a tractor. This is a Technic set that I’ve been wanting. I’ll say up front that I’m not a big fan of Technic normally – I simply don’t have the time or money (or space) to invest in Technic sets and in customizing them once I’ve built them, but this set plus the 8045 Mini Telehandler were two that I wanted out of the early 2010 batch. Some of the red pieces had me definitely thinking about maybe using them with an Atlantis-based MOC. Some of these larger pieces also showed up in the Space Police 5981 Raid VPR set as well.

Overall, it’s a decent set, although as with most Technic sets, I would say avoid it if you aren’t a fan of Technic. With that said, it does have some really good pieces that could make their way into offroad-based MOCs. It’s just a matter of cost – $40 could be very expensive for a set of wheels and shock absorbers.

On with the review and a warning – if you are reading this on the front page of MostlyBricks.com, it is image-heavy. If you are reading the full review, you already realize that. You may just want to scroll to the bottom to read the full review and then come back up and look at any photos.

By the Numbers:
Set: LEGO Technic 8048 Buggy (2-in-1 – converts to tractor)
Year of Release: 2010
Type: Technic 2-in-1 Vehicle
# of Pieces: 314
# of Extra pieces: Depends on build
# of Minifigs and what kind: N/A
Stickers? Yes, 7
Price: $39.99 at Shop.LEGO.com or Amazon.com.
Ages: 9-16
Time to Complete: Right around an hour or so (Nearly two hours including laying all pieces out and photos)

Remember: click on the photos to see larger images at flickr (Full 8048 Buggy gallery at flickr)

Box Art – Front:

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Update: Toys R Us Trip Report Part II – November 28, 2009.

Paid a trip to the Toys R Us in Cedar Park, Texas, to check out the 2010 LEGO sets that are popping up in the various Toys R US stores around the US, and came away with a couple of the cheaper sets, Creator 5866 Rotor Rescue, and Power Miners 8188 Fire Blaster, and I’ll get reviews of both up later today/tonight. I also took photos of the sets on the shelf to give you an idea of pricing and the fact that they are “official”, at least as far as Toys R Us is concerned. All had shelf stickers/price tags, and I didn’t come across any empty places. It’s in fact been a week since these have started showing up, and obviously they are not being pulled at the request of LEGO.

Here’s the list of what I saw tonight, followed by photos of each (remember, click on the images to see a bigger photo at flickr):
* 7207 City – Fire Boat ($49.99)
* 7208 City – Fire Station ($79.99)
* 5866 Creator – Helicopter ($12.99) ($16.99 at Amazon)
* 8188 Power Miners – Fire Blaster ($9.99) ($12.99 at Amazon)
* 7967 Racers – Fast (Probably $12.99) (Not at Amazon)
* 7968 Racers – Strong (Probably $12.99) (Not at Amazon)
* 8198 Racers – Ramp Crash ($14.99) (Not at Amazon)
* 8045 Technic – Mini-Telehandler ($10.99) ($12.99 at Amazon)
* 8046 Technic – Helicopter ($19.99)

That’s in addition to the ones we’ve already reviewed:
* 8056 Atlantis – Monster Crab Clash
* 8058 Atlantis – Guardian of the Deep
* 8060 Atlantis – Typhoon Turbo Sub
* 5981 Space Police – Raid VPR
* 5982 Space Police – Smash ‘n’ Grab

Besides the two I bought, I came very close to picking up the 8045 Technic Mini-Telehandler – a decent number of very usable parts for the price – 117 for $10.99, and while I could ignore the 2-in-1 conversion into a motorcycle and sidecar, that was kind of an interesting conversion. It’s interesting that Toys R Us has a lower price for the 5866 Helicopter, 8045 Mini-Telehandler, 8188 Fire Blaster. I would assume Amazon.com ends up a little cheaper at some point.

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