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I asked because I wanted to ask. What is so hard to understand here? Also, my wants and intentions are off this particular topic

A mere fact that I asked a question doesn't mean you should be answering it

Didn't read your whole post - too long; however, this caught my eye: who cares about flexible options when you must keep an eye on the touch screen at all times instead of watching the model? Touch screens lack haptic feedback. You are entitled to your opinion, and so I am to mine. I like PF better.

So I checked again, and turns out Bricklink has two items for motors, one cheap and one expensive. For example the XL motor: cheap link and expensive link. I'm not sure what to make of it. Those cheap motors - are they genuine LEGO? How can they be sold for such low price, where do those people get them? Can anyone (with some knowledge in software development) keep their APK under half a gigabyte? Why wasn't that anyone hired by TLG then for their C+? Rhetorical question.

Most of the prices I see on Bricklink are close to the TLG's price. Or do you mean some other aftermarket? Well then there's no guarantee the software will be maintained, is there? But even if LEGO actually had a software engineering department - I'm not sure how much that would help really. Corporate strategies change. The question is not whether it's complex, but whether they can do it. And let's wait until it's open source first. Anyways, I am personally not excited about the new system being so tied to third party devices and so expensive, so I don't plan to be getting it in the foreseeable future.

This fate awaits PU motors as well. But they will cost even more than PF, as they already do. And how "third-party software" will get paid for their labor? The software side also worries me, tbh. TLG is not a software company, they are a toy company. I mean, C+'s APK was, like, 500Ms lol - I hope they fixed that now. Will they have enough resources and knowledge to maintain their software? Yes, they had Mindstorms, and pretty successfully, but they seem to be greatly expanding their software scale with PU. All the firmware for the smart hubs... And it's likely the mobile apps will need constant maintenance. I'm really curious to see how PU pans out.

news? Is it available for desktop, or for mobile only? If no desktop app, which mobile devices are supported then? Which iOS/Android versions? How convenient really is it, to program something on a touch screen? These are all rhetorical questions. Personally, I wouldn't hurry to label PU as "progress". Yes, it's a new corporate strategy, and PU is better for TLG for their reasons - it doesn't necessarily mean it's better for us, because we have our own reasons and definitions of "better", don't we?

Thanks for the review! The turquoise of the new Mindstorms is elusive to the cameras, so to make sure: is this "dark turquoise" the same color or different?

Thanks for the review! Finally they started making beams with holes in both planes - I hope there will be more of them

I doubt they have sales figures on a mechanical calculator - they never made it, did they? Anyways, we're going into off-topic now, although I am intensely curious about how TLG makes sets (the process), so if you have any recommendations on book/documentaries/websites - feel free to drop them to me!

How do they know?

I really wonder why can't we have at least one mechanical calculator or drawing automaton. You can do so many fun things with clockwork 42055 is a mining machine, not a construction vehicle

One girl? Lol don't you think you're over-generalizing a bit? How can you judge 50% of the world population - ~4 billion of people - based on one decision at one point of life of one girl, seriously?

...and vice versa, I hope? I'm hopeful for the second wave then - I'm not at all excited about cars.

It's one thing to think something, and completely different thing to have statistics. As for RI being "more attractive to boys and girls" - I personally don't see how that is. You mean, painting something teal instead of red and making screen show smileys and emojis instead of information makes it more attractive to girls? Seems very strange to me. Or just because the marketing is different? The marketing for Mindstorms has been becoming less and less skewed towards boys indeed. The toy itself, it seems, has stayed the same (with the exception of generational hardware changes). However, given that it's not as much children themselves choosing as culture and parents/school imposing their views on children what should and shouldn't be attractive for them, if the new Mindstorms design/marketing would make the set seem to parents like more appropriate for their girl and they will be actually inspired to buy the set for their daughter - I'm ok with that. On PF motors, the wires typically break where it connects to the motor. I'm not sure if PU motors are different in that spot - I'm not into PU too much.

I wasn't talking about robotics centers either... I was talking about families. And I was talking not just from observations (which I also have), but from studies done that show that boys are much more likely to own tech things such as computers than girls. I mean, you yourself already admit that you see more boys than girls, right? A kind of a girl that the parent would bring to a robotics class is probably the one that would indeed own a computer or a gaming console, but there are less such girls than boys. That was the point I was making, and it seems to be matching your observation. You mentioned in your video that you compare the sets from two different angles, one of which is the Mom and Dad angle, and another is a robotics enthusiast angle (and not necessarily adult, either....). EV3 has more to offer than just Python, I think it's important. Re: wires, I tried to stress the cost of Powered UP in comparison to both EV3 and Power Functions. You're right, exactly - LEGO does not sell extension wires for Powered UP at the moment, and so if you need to extend the wire you have an option to spend EUR 22 + shipping. If LEGO were offering such wires, they would be cheaper (not to mention the free shipping). Hopefully they will come up with that in the future, but at the moment that's the disadvantage comparing to both EV3 motors and Power Functions motors. EV3 have detachable cables of varying lengths, and PF have inexpensive extensions. If a wire breaks (the PF wires do break - I don't think it happens all the time, but I do see the topic being mentioned on youtube channels of Technic enthusiasts). And the cost of a PF motor is 4-5 times less than Powered UP motors. EV3 motors are just expensive as Powered UP, but the cables are detachable and much cheaper - you get a pack of 7 for $25. Sure!

It's interesting to see the target audience described like that - definitely makes you think. The description matches a boy, not just any 10-12 y.o. child. Girls are less likely to be given technical things like a computer or a gaming console. I'm not sure if a country exists where children from regular families possess the latest models of mobile devices, but in such a country such a child would probably also be a boy. It's kinda comical, when you consider all those super-inclusive marketing shots where they so carefully measure how many girls should be in the picture. In this light, the option to program on the brick gets a whole new dimension. Re: the SD-card - the important distinction is that it allows you to program not just in Python, but other languages as well. Re: wires, yes Power Functions have fixed wires.... but LEGO offers wire extensions, and they cost $5, not EUR 22 like the Powered UP extension from PV Productions you showed during your presentation. Also, the motors themselves were much less costly to replace - PF motor is $10-13, vs $50 for Powered UP.

Oh that would be too bad! I'll keep my fingers crossed, it would be great to see an updated edition. Thanks!

Great review, thank you so much! Unrelated but @Sariel are there plans for the 3rd edition of your awesome Unofficial LEGO Technic Builder's Giude?

Nicely done!

Oh, interesting, what kinds of complaints did people have? It seems like a plain upgrade compared to NXT, was it not? Like I mentioned - I am not a Python programmer, but I do routinely set breakpoints in multithreaded Java and C++ with no issue. I'm not sure why would that be a problem in robotics - I guess you just need a good IDE. Yeah, the screen is quite dim, I use a little flashlight practically all the time :) If you mean you can't access the Port View screen - you can print the values on the screen for debugging yourself.

Setting breakpoints is when you can pause the execution of the code right before it breaks and examine the program state and all the values etc. After such a pause, you can continue executing the code instruction by instruction, again seeing the program state and all the variables after each instruction. That can help a lot finding bugs - by reasoning alone it's very hard to do (because if you could reason correctly about that piece of code you'd not write a bug in the first place). Breakpoints are impossible to do with the EV3 graphical language, and setting that up in VS Code proved difficult for me. I personally tend to just print values on the EV3 screen. Anyways, I'm pretty sure the robot would have to be connected to computer to do breakpoint debugging. Sometimes wires are in the way (some of my robots could not move without gears flying all over when connected to the computer), so wireless connectivity would help with that. At least that's my vague understanding of the breakpoint + BT debugging conversation :)

Yeah, I said that. By "debugging" on the brick I meant with RI you must have your robot connected to the computer to see the values etc. The new brick lacks a screen. Re: RAM situation - I'm not sure which OS the thing runs, maybe the Linux that's on EV3 ate most of the memory so we actually haven't lost much in RI. Depends on your definition of "obsolete" :) oh yeah, btw - with EV3, there two libraries to choose from, the official LEGO one and the community one (the APIs are a bit different). And yeah, the extensions and autcomplete etc. RI might have these goodies later - other languages support, alternative Python libraries etc. but it won't happen by tomorrow for sure. (It might not happen at all too.) Incidentally - does the RI have an IDE to code in Python? Does it have a breakpoint capability? I was having troubles setting that up in VS Code for EV3.

wow, some awesome creations detected! Interesting. My sensor shows ~40 max at the moment, and it doesn't "see" anything farther away than ~80cm away. I think that's approx the actual maximum distance. So yeah, it looks like I might need some calibration on the software side. Thank you folks, the sensor now makes a bit more sense to me!

oh yes, I tried in different locations and directions. I've never experienced this before with the sensor. I tried in different locations (quite frankly, the location is always the same two rooms in my apartment) and in different light conditions. So does your sensor simply show different numbers or does the actual nearest distance it can "see" also change? What is the range of nearest distances your sensor can show?