Khaled Yousef

The budget you mentioned will not take you out of the P&S range, unless you’re willing to buy used DSLR. The difference in image quality and overall photographic experience between P&S and DSLRs is incredible, I strongly recommend you try to push the budget a little further, get an entry level DSLR from Canon or Nikon and fall in love with the awesome hobby of photography… trust me, you won’t regret it, and you’ll never look back at any P&S again. However, if you’re going to stick to the P&S for budget reasons then why don’t you take a look at the Canon SX520 or something in the same category, it has incredible zoom range, high resolution sensor and it shoots full HD videos, everything you need basically for cheap price, and the bigger glass it has will always deliver better quality than the tiny glass on smaller P&S cameras. Another midway option is to look for the highly regarded Sony RX100; it has a much bigger sensor than P&S cameras and it sports a very high quality and bright Zeiss glass. It produces image quality that’s very close to DSLRs in base ISO, and it has very high quality construction. It’s the camera most professionals I know carry around for travel and personal use, so if you found one for a reasonable price, less than 400$, just buy it. There is always the interchangeable lens mirror-less offerings from Sony, for the budget you mentioned an a5000 with kit lens will be 1000000 times better than any P&S, with DSLR size sensor, 20 MP, full HD video and the ability to change lens to suit your needs. I’m not too crazy about Sony lens system since they seem to change things too often; I’d rather go for Nikon or Canon if it’s going to be an interchangeable lens system.

Thanks for the link LOMIS. I really don’t understand those chess sets, I mean which kid would get an awesome bunch of minifigs and parts and use them to play a boring chess game? A kid would just build improvised ships and forts and send all those figs to battle… I know I would.

Customer service rep will never mention anything unauthorized by the company.

Awesome creation, full of clever details. I really like the bag over the pirate’s head, very clever, and also the blood on the wall is a nice touch.

dr_spock: awesome creations man, humor aside these are some terrific MOCs you display so casually.

Terrific build for such a classic movie, Ray Harryhausen would be proud of your models. The hydra design is my favorite. Keep them coming LegoAcklay, you’re an awesome designer.

Well, another useless minifig for me. It’s cool and everything, but I would’ve preferred one of the missing lead characters from the movies, like Cloud city Lando or Endor Luke, or even a less important one that actually had a role, but that’s just me, the fig definitely looks cool. To me it’s another missed opportunity to finally get an updated version of a chrome-gold 3PO with printed eyes and wires.

rollermonkey: a square antenna totally justifies the bump The interior, and minifig count, in this set better compensate for that increase then. Judging by the improvement in design of the Imperial shuttle, I’m optimistic about the design of the Falcon. The last one was bad to say the least.

Let's just hope the set don't get rejected.

Either way I expect it to be as awful as the two we already saw. TFA Millennium Falcon set seems to be so overpriced; the last one we got was around 120$, what could possibly make the new one deserve this ridiculous bump up in price?

Why haven’t we seen anything about this set in NYTF? Shouldn’t there be at least a hint?

What part of “there is a LOTR set that had reached 10000 votes and being reviewed as a potential set by LEGO” don’t you guys understand?

Yeah, they made one, but with a stupid Clone Wars cartoon face, we need a normal Aayla with normal PT face. Same goes for Luminara, Shaak Ti and Ki-adi Mundi as well. It would be great if you added any of those to your project so that there would be a chance we might get them along with your awesome creatures.

Sure it must qualify; it’s a single frame and it’s very funny. Just keep them coming, wherever you may post them.

Nom Carver: Ultimate Collectors Series doesn’t always stand for better design my friend; it’s easy to make big model if you have enough parts, designing a smaller yet accurate version is a bigger challenge. And the UCS Lambda Class Shuttle wasn’t very accurate despite the sheer size, the nose still looked very inaccurate and it lacked details over all. This one however looks more like an interesting and rich build in a challenging scale, that’s what I meant by saying it’s better than the others.

Yeah, even though they were one of the bestselling toys last year, being affordable and awesomely designed, they decided to replace them with crap non-LEGO-like GALIDOR horror.

Now that I’ve seen all the pictures, here is what I think: Tydirium: absolutely amazing design; superior to anything else LEGO has made for that ship, including the UCS one. The minifigs: Leia didn’t need a cloth camo, the previous version was just fine, Han is good and now I guess we have all his outfits covered, the rebel commandoes are in olive so they won’t match with the ones we have, thanks LEGO. Final Duel: nothing to say about the build. The minifigs aren’t that special, Vader’s helmet looks weird and might need some time to get used to, the Emperor is great (although I feel bad about buying the book version, but that’s personal) and Luke has a new torso which is awesome. Naboo Starfighter: everything about this set is extremely boring, same old design, same old minifigs, only one new torso for the pilot and that’s it… total crap set. Flash Speeder: nice design but slightle exaggerated to make it look more badass, and a good chance to get the Naboo guard in a cheaper set. Is Captain Tarpals purple? Weird! Advent Calendar: only one thing captured my attention; that Hoth Rebel Trooper fellow, FINALLY LEGO realized these guys wore white, you know, snow camo, not tan which was really stupid. I guess this makes the Echo Base rumor more plausible. Constraction: crap it’s a shame LEGO had to reside to this cheap approach to make more money. These mutants looks nothing like a LEGO product… this is a cheap and shameful move… and it doesn’t even look any good.

The UCS TIE looks bad, like a big bulk of nothing new, no interesting techniques, no clever curves, just straight forward lazy solutions for the solar fins and blocky slopes for the pod… terrible job on this one LEGO. And all I can say about that Luke Constraction figure is

Or Aayla Secura, because we already have Barriss Offee.

I just hope he doesn’t have the grimace as a double print, because I’ve just bought the book version off Bricklink, I’d be really pissed.

The sets look awesome, but I’m not too crazy about the palm trees, they’re the worst version in all the Pirates lines that ever came out since 1989. But then again, everything else about this line is terrific, so I can’t complain.

Love all those Jar Jar bashing stuff dr_spock, the pics are funny as well as creative, which makes me think it would fit better in the Single-pane funnies thread, that way we get all SW comedy stuff in one place.

How come it’s rumored that we’ll be getting only 32 sets this year? We’ve already got 19 of them in the January wave, which leaves 13 sets; four already revealed to be OT/PT stuff and six rumored GALIDOR-like sets, a UCS TIE and an Echo Base play set, which leaves only 1 set for TFA! Unless they mean 32 sets to come from now till the end of this year, which leaves 20 blank spaces for TFA and Rebels sets to be released in June and September… how awesome would that be if it was true.

LEGO is a hobby, not marriage. You don’t have to be passionate about it all the time or else you’d think something is wrong. Forget about the internet super geeks, normal people have normal lives and a side hobby in spare time to make life more enjoyable. Just keep it simple; gather all your collection somewhere confined so it won’t be in your face all the time, and just pay it a visit whenever you feel like it, enjoy for a couple of hours, and then get back to your life. LEGO should be for releasing tension not creating one by adding more obligations and must-do-tasks to your adult life. And here is an idea, since you’re not enjoying playing for now: spend that obvious coming “Dark Age” sorting; since it’s a tedious task you won’t be expecting any fun out of it, so you won’t be disappointed, you already know sorting sucks so you won’t think that your love for the hobby has gone, and you’ll appreciate it very much when you come out of that Dark Age. It’s a lot easier to MOC in an organized environment when you feel like MOCing. AND even the most passionate MOCer can lose interest because of the effort of finding parts in heaps of disorganized tubs. Also organizing lets you know what you don’t need, which you can donate like people have suggested here and feel good about yourself and your hobby. I did just that, I spent some years of confusion and lack of interest silently collecting and sorting and organizing, and when I found the time and passion again I found what a great gift I gave myself; all the SW minifigs are there, complete, shiny and beautiful, tons of bricks in all shapes and forms neatly organized by type and color and ready for MOCing. I also found a donation ready giant tub full of harshly used parts and loads of old grey that I won’t use in MOCs anymore. As of spending, I’ve limited my purchases to a couple of big Bricklink orders a year; diverse orders lets you get a little bit of everything without spending too much on full sets, a minifig from here, an interesting part from there, your collection grows cautiously and you keep on getting this “new LEGO” feeling that was mentioned here without feeling guilty or overwhelmed by stuff you don’t need. And you won’t miss on the discontinued or hard to find items when you come back to your passion, which is a life saver, believe me. You don’t need a divorce, you just need a break.

I don’t feel “strongly” about internet stuff. Apparently I went too far sympathizing with Nuju; apologies if I crossed any line. Thanks for your fair reply.