Review: 41916 Extra Dots series 2
Posted by Alice,
The Extra DOTS packs may be the most appealing aspect of the theme for many AFOLs. They're a cheap way to get your hands on lots of tile pieces for your own MOCs
41908 Extra Dots - Series 1, which contained pastel tiles with emoji themed printed round tiles, was released earlier in the year, and now we have 41916 Extra Dots - Series 2, which is a lot brighter with some 'text' themed printed square tiles.
Inside the pack there are lots of bright pieces which look warm and summery. 1/4 circle tiles in Medium Azur and yellow and some extra bright round tiles in Bright Blue and Vibrant Coral. There's also some 'Opalescent' round tiles which don't seem to appear anywhere else. And of course the printed square tiles...
The pack contains 10 out of a possible 16 printed square tiles. Here's what I got in mine:
Now I thought I'd try adding them to all the sets I have reviewed.
I think they work well with 41913 Bracelet Mega Pack: you can make your bracelets brighter and embellish them with even more printed tiles, and square ones instead of the round ones that come with the set. You could however question whether the colours actually match the pastel bracelet bands. The images from LEGO suggest using them on the 41911 Go Team! Bracelet and 41919 Power Bracelet bands so perhaps they're better suited to those?
41914 Creative Picture Frames already contains vibrant coral so you can add even more with the extra pieces. I added some to my existing designs and some printed tiles. The frames have a different yellow shade though so not sure if they clash a bit. You could completely change the design and it would probably work better with the yellow and blue tiles.
I definitely think 41908 Extra Dots - Series 1 would've suited the jewellery box better. It's almost as if it were made for this set with the same colour scheme. I added some to my design anyway to see how it looks. I used the printed tiles and some of the opalescent pieces, I didn't want to ruin it with the vibrant coral! I think I'll have to go and get Series 1 to embellish my (or should I say Huwbot's) jewellery box!
However, one issue is colour consistency! We've been criticised recently for not calling out such issues, so I'll make a point of doing so here.
I noticed quite a significant difference in the colour of the yellow 1/4 circle tiles. They're all meant to be Flame Yellowish Orange but I actually had to check the parts list because I thought they were completely different colours, as you can see below.
At £3.99 / $3.99 / €3.99 for 109 pieces, it's pretty good value. If you need to add some 1/4 circle and round tiles to your collection then there's no better way! Plus, you get some cool printed tiles too.
I would say that Series 1 may work better with most of the DOTS sets as the colour schemes are similar. Nevertheless, Series 2 is from the summer wave and I would certainly say it has a summery theme, and it's good to have some printed square tiles too as Series 1 and most the DOTS sets contain round ones.
Thanks to LEGO for providing this set for review. All expressed opinions are my own.
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23 comments on this article
Also remarkable most prints are not straight
I like the ssiw printed tile.
@namekuji said:
"I like the ssiw printed tile."
Lol! Yes it was just pointed out to me that it’s upside down and actually spells Miss! I couldn’t see it before, like an optical illusion or something... Oops :)
Though there are some nice prints they aren't as useful as the ones in the first series.
Thanks for the review :D
I think it's a little disingenuous to put random printed pieces in the Extras bags instead of a constant inventory. Those are the highlight and draw of the pack.
I bought both packs but haven't opened them yet, so I don't know which printed tiles are in mine. But the quality of the prints in this set certainly looks quite shabby. Almost no print is aligned properly.
And of course the colour inconsistencies continue.
i agree graymattr, but that's probably why they did it all the same. trying to make it a "collect them all!" kind of deal. which is kind of silly considering you can see the pieces inside, but it is a chore much like feeling minifig packets is, so maybe they're counting on selling a few more when people don't have the patience.
I'm much more taken by Series 2 than Series 1, and not just for the coral although that alone would've been enough to entice me!
Very disappointed about the variations in material pigment across this year though.
I'm just going to be sitting here waiting for the LEGO cult members to tell me the cost of LEGO has to be so high because the quality has gotten better.
Two very different shades of orange and all the title prints are really badly off center. This isn't an exception, this is the new normal and it's inexcusable.
First off, I absolutely love how one of your framed pictures is of Huwbot. Oh, bless.
I really like having such a wonderful range of printed tiles ... it's just a darn shame the quality of the tiles is really, really poor. The colour issue is quite extraordinary, as well. That looks like three (if not four) different shades of orange and yellow. That's really poor.
As said, thank goodness Lego is charging ever higher prices these days, amirite?
I picked up 4 packs for my daughter. Managed to get all 16 prints from the first 3 bags, but coalition wasn’t that great as we only got 1 of a couple tiles and 6 of others. But she’s had a blast decorating with all of the tiles. The opal rounds are very neat.
I preferred the colors and the prints from Series 1. But I'll get a few of the Series 2 bags as well :)
btw the colors in Series 2 aren't "brighter" than Series 1, but more saturated. Brighter would mean "with more white", so Series 1 is actually brighter than Series 2. (I realize brighter is used here as happier and not whiter. It just confused me for a bit, so I'm pointing it out)
@graymattr said:
"I think it's a little disingenuous to put random printed pieces in the Extras bags instead of a constant inventory. Those are the highlight and draw of the pack."
particularly considering that LEGO itself limits you to buying 3 from their own website; you not only are unable to predict what you get, you can't buy more if you want to try again
Most of new ones are not as in good as previous series
I want to use few as greetings cards in the kiosk.
When you say opalescent does that mean the pieces are translucent instead of transparent or that they are a white pearl like the pearl gold or pearl dark grey?
@ohrmazd said:
"When you say opalescent does that mean the pieces are translucent instead of transparent or that they are a white pearl like the pearl gold or pearl dark grey?"
They are translucent, but look like a foggy white color with some lightblue/purple sheen to it when light is angled on it.
It's like there are miniature glitter on it, much smaller compared to the series 1 trans-lightblue with actual glitter pieces.
Can be seen here :
https://brickset.com/sets/41916-1
I even see 3 different shades of orange in those 4 quarter tiles. These color issues become so common now, I have not been used to this with Lego overall quality in the past. Even if he did not encounter the problem on his review model, Huw talks about it in his Crocodile locomotive though. It starts to be "worrying".
@ohrmazd said:
"When you say opalescent does that mean the pieces are translucent instead of transparent or that they are a white pearl like the pearl gold or pearl dark grey?"
Yes exactly what @TeriXeri said. They’re translucent with a kind of iridescent sheen. LEGO call them ‘opalescent glitter tiles’ in the set description.
Both of these DOT packs look great for MOC's.
Checking through the packaging "window", I've been able to acquire full sets of both series by purchasing no more than three packs. Unfortunately, if you buy online, that method isn't possible. For those of you who don't have a LEGO store accessible, I have found Dots sets at Michael's (craft store) and Target. I live in Florida.
The printed tiles seem a lot less useful and less gender neutral than Series 1, unfortunately. Personally, I would have preferred more emojis.
@Dash_Justice said:
"The printed tiles seem a lot less useful and less gender neutral than Series 1, unfortunately. Personally, I would have preferred more emojis."
These seem pretty gender-neutral to me? What am I missing? Perhaps the "me" and "you" tiles lean girly given that they resemble the font used in the "justgirlthings"/"justgirlythings" image macros, but the others don't seem gendered to me in any way.
@lordofdragonss said:
"Most of new ones are not as in good as previous series
I want to use few as greetings cards in the kiosk."
I made a little brick-built figure for my friend's birthday and used some of the printed tiles to put a small "card" in the figure's hand with the sentiment: "Hey, You Rock, <3 You". It worked out pretty well.
Until this review, I hadn't noticed the printing or color inconsistencies. I haven't investigated the ones I have too closely.
First, I love the concept behind the DOTS line and have been collecting them, but I'm disappointed with the execution. Lego had a real opportunity to make a gender-neutral product that appealed to boys and girls young and old by simply using color schemes more in line with Classic brick boxes. They could have been a bit heavier on the "girly" colors than the brick boxes are if they wanted to target girls slightly more than boys.
I've heard many parents with both girls and boys where the boys were as interested in the DOTS as the girls but were disappointed to find how limited the "non-girly" options were. They're even arranged next to the Friends sets in stores which clearly sends the message that this is a toy meant for girls. Though I believe there was at least one boy pictured on the bracelet megapack set, but it seemed like they threw him in as an afterthought. Personally, I like to see inclusivity to go both ways. At least the second series of the Extra DOTS is a small step in the right direction.
Secondly, while I appreciate the glittery and opalescent plates in the first and second Extras series, I'm baffled that LEGO troubled themselves to make a brand new faceted 1x1 element and then only included it in two bracelet sets. I feel like they should have put some in each of the bigger sets at the very least. I also would have liked to see them included in the Extra packs, even in a limited quantity like the printed tiles.
My final disappointment is with the lack of shapes provided. The sets are extremely heavy on the 1/4 round shapes with minimal basic square or round tiles. The "creativity set" they sent out to brand ambassadors and such to promote the line is so much more varied in tile shapes and color ranges than what was actually released. Even the logo for them is more colorful and gender-neutral than the sets actually are. It feels a tad misleading.