REVIEW: 4203 Excavator Transporter (2012)

[AFOLEGODT]

Hello City Fans,

I have time for another review and fortunately I got most of the Mine series relatively early.

So let's see 4203 Excavator Transporter from 2012!

Box from relevant angles:

The box is surprisingly small considering the long trailer. Contents after unboxing:

Sticker sheet. I don't like transparent stickers like these as it is almost impossible to put them on without any visible bubbles remaining under them.

Parts lists in the instructions, it might be relevant now as inventory is not available yet on bricklink:

New colors (or at least rare):

This is only new for the new City Mine theme and comes from Power Miners:

The excavator "naked", no stickers yet. Actually the stickers add some detail but it looks good without too:

Finished model. I didn't give steps as instructions are available to download). Everything fits on the trailer so it can be stored very compactly.

Spare parts (may be important again as bricklink has no inventory yet):

The excavator:

The main play feature of the model:

This construction holds the excavator very tightly:

I decided to compare this set with the most similar one from earlier, namely 7633 Construction Site.

It is hard to tell which is better really. But I must say I always liked the use of green that was almost completely missing in sets before 2000:

But when comparing the excavator with one of similar size, namely 7248 Digger from 2005 when TLG dark ages just almost ended the verdict is quite obvious to me:

The new excavator is much more realistic and not for the new elements:

"Ok, now we both turn around. OMG, what's wrong with you?". I really hope the designer was fired for this:

Verdict:

Design: 10/10 Simple but effective design for a normal City set.

Build: 6/10 Nothing exciting, no sign of any new idea.

Playability: 8/10 Drilling rocks, rotating the excavator, changing bucket to drill, transporting the excavator, adequate for such a set but no new idea.

Minifigs: 10/10 Nice new prints.

Parts: 10/10 Great new colors, especially the green.

Overall: 9/10 Mainly for the lack of new build idea, but still worth buying for City fans, especially who like construction scenes.

Thanks for reading!

[just2good]

Nice review, 'AFOLEGODT'!

This is another meh City Mining set. I have absolutely no interest in getting this set. It's too pricey and kind of pointless.

[Jay Sathe]

I'm with "just2good" on this one. There's just nothing terribly special about the set, and as someone who already has the old Construction Site, my green lowboy truck quota is already full. Great review though - I loved the comparisons!