BricTek on Amazon, BricTek on eBay.
Overall Brand Rating:
(Extremely high quality sets, only minor issues. As close to real Lego as you will get.)
BricTek sets are overall of very high quality. It is as close to Lego as you will find- I feel they have potential to be Lego's biggest and best competitor. Although they don't sell directly to consumers you can visit the BricTek Website yourself. You will see they have many of the same themes as Lego- Space, City, Pirate, Train, Police, and so on... but they go beyond Lego with Army and other military themes that Lego does not embrace. BricTek even offers buckets of bricks and other parts for free building.
BricTek bricks have proved to be perfectly compatible with Lego bricks in my tests. BricTek models are well designed and their finished products are sturdy and fun to play with. They are generous with their mini-figures and in all honesty I have to say that BricTek mini-figures are of almost identical quality and look to Lego mini-figures.
I have had some minor issues with instructions in some BricTek sets but there are some things BricTek does even better than Lego and the most major one is with their instructions.
Look at where those red arrows are pointing. When a 2x10 or a 2x12 or similar brick is called for BricTek prints the actual number of studs next to the brick. No more having to stop what you are doing and use your finger to count the number of studs on the brick in the instructions- it just tells you. I love it and it comes in handy because I can tell 6 studs from 8 studs, but I'm not as sure when I see 10 studs vs 12 studs, or even larger numbers. I always find myself manually checking rather than risk a mistake that would waste a lot of time.
It is important to note many, and perhaps all, BricTek bricks are manufactured by WOMA who also sells brick sets under its own label. Much of what I have said applies to WOMA as well but I think BricTek either has additional QA staff or otherwise contracted to get only the best of the best from WOMA as WOMA branded sets I've seen are good but not the near perfect quality of BricTek in general.
Check out my review of the BricTek Airplane / Airport for some more details on the brand.
Overall Brand Rating:
(Extremely high quality sets, only minor issues. As close to real Lego as you will get.)
BricTek sets are overall of very high quality. It is as close to Lego as you will find- I feel they have potential to be Lego's biggest and best competitor. Although they don't sell directly to consumers you can visit the BricTek Website yourself. You will see they have many of the same themes as Lego- Space, City, Pirate, Train, Police, and so on... but they go beyond Lego with Army and other military themes that Lego does not embrace. BricTek even offers buckets of bricks and other parts for free building.
BricTek bricks have proved to be perfectly compatible with Lego bricks in my tests. BricTek models are well designed and their finished products are sturdy and fun to play with. They are generous with their mini-figures and in all honesty I have to say that BricTek mini-figures are of almost identical quality and look to Lego mini-figures.
I have had some minor issues with instructions in some BricTek sets but there are some things BricTek does even better than Lego and the most major one is with their instructions.
Look at where those red arrows are pointing. When a 2x10 or a 2x12 or similar brick is called for BricTek prints the actual number of studs next to the brick. No more having to stop what you are doing and use your finger to count the number of studs on the brick in the instructions- it just tells you. I love it and it comes in handy because I can tell 6 studs from 8 studs, but I'm not as sure when I see 10 studs vs 12 studs, or even larger numbers. I always find myself manually checking rather than risk a mistake that would waste a lot of time.
It is important to note many, and perhaps all, BricTek bricks are manufactured by WOMA who also sells brick sets under its own label. Much of what I have said applies to WOMA as well but I think BricTek either has additional QA staff or otherwise contracted to get only the best of the best from WOMA as WOMA branded sets I've seen are good but not the near perfect quality of BricTek in general.
Check out my review of the BricTek Airplane / Airport for some more details on the brand.