Grand Carousel (10196) - De-boxing and Initial Thoughts!!

Upon opening, we found that the pieces were packed in a similar manner to what you would expect in a Lego set. The type of plastic used for the bags was the same crunchy, crinkly plastic that Lego uses.

It was a pretty impressive haul - covered the better part of our assembly table.

One difference we spotted was the lack of numbering on the bags. The parts are not divided into the chapters of the build but are sorted by color and type. We actually prefer this style of packing as it is more conducive to the knolling process. Due to this style of packaging, there are also a larger number of bags, each containing a smaller number of parts.

Pieces bagged by type and color

The colors themselves look pretty good - they aren't faded and look as vibrant as the Lego pieces do. Mom was really excited at all the different colors there were - 3 shades of blue, 2 shades of red, yellows, etc.

Look at those colors!

The instruction manual looks exactly as the Lego version - with the small exception of the Lepin logo in the top left corner. Otherwise, the print material feels the same and the print quality seems to be equivalent.

Some reviews I have read of Lepin sets complain about the quality of the print on the minifigures - issues with the faces not being centered, eyeballs being printed on tops of heads, lines on the eyes not being crisp. I have to say that I did not find ANY of those issues with the minifigure parts on this set thus far.

As you can see below, the detailing is of good quality and all eyes are on the face and not the scalp :)

Another difference we noticed was that the point of injection on the Lepin pieces was larger than those on a typical Lego piece. A typical Lego piece has a small pinprick where the liquid plastic is injected into the brick mold. As you can see below, the Lepin pieces have a pretty noticeable injection site. Aside from being less aesthetically pleasing, it does not seem to affect the fit of the pieces at all.