In this video we are going to compare the old Pab Jugs / cups to the new LEGO cardboard boxes from the Pick and Build walls (aka Pick a brick) – which is better value. Is this a case of shrinkflation by LEGO where they are reducing the size of what it is but still keeping it at the same price.

In the UK, these are £14.99 each. One was recently filled up at Lester Square city store in London. The other was done at the Bluewater LEGO store which is east of London (which seems to be one of the trialing places for these boxes, along with a store in Berlin).

We will be doing this with a 4×4 plate element as this would help getting us better sizes in the box and seeing which is better value. Is this a good move by LEGO or a step backwards?

2×4 Brick Optimisation in PaB Cups Link (Brick Fest Live – Your Creative Friends) https://youtu.be/fED5J10hT10

Transcript from the Show

G’day everyone, Matt Elder from Familybricks here and in this video we’re going to compare the old Pub jugs to the new Lego cardboard boxes for your pick and build walls and see which is better value is this the case of shrinkflation by Lego where they’re reducing the size of what it is but still keeping these at the same price in the UK these are 14.99 pounds each and this was recently filled up at Leicester Square store in London and this one is done out of blue water which is in east of London and they seem to be one of the traveling places for these boxes along with a store in Berlin

Now we’re going to be doing that looking at a 4×4 plate element as it’ll help us just getting better sizes in there and see which is better value and is this a good move or a step backwards.

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So it’s in at the Lego store in London Leicester Square which is the now the biggest Lego store in the world again and went through and packed one of these pad cups filled with these pieces now the reason for this is getting these in large quantities in the UK is virtually impossible if you want 10 to 20 and get it off Bricklink no worries anything over that you have to go through multiple cells and even then they don’t have them and then if you go off to Germany or the continent in Europe the postage gets so expensive though it starts to become an economical so I wanted these anyhow.

So this has been done with an optimal configuration which is based upon using two by four bricks but I’ve just changed it slightly for my purposes so there’s a link around the video to somebody else who did this about 11 years ago. So you have that in the top first layer, second layer, third layer, fourth layer assistant and I’ve got some loose pieces in the bottom just one more unflow pieces now did the same on this other cup here.

Sure I could have probably pushed putting more of the smaller pieces in between and things like that but I thought even just doing that much and having that taped down was really pushing it so I didn’t want to push it too much further so we can go through and do a count of these and see how many of these 4×4 plate pieces that we got and then just because the numbers the black pieces are actually two by four bricks just because when you’ve got odd numbers in terms of the bricks you can put across you needed the black ones and my son wanted them for a building project at school.

So I was in a Bluewater Lego Store this evening which is east of London in the UK and they seem to be one of the few stores which are doing the trials on the new boxes so I’ve loaded them up here again I’ve probably pushed the sizing on a little bit but you can sort of see really close relatively firmly and snuggly and they’re also going to be doing the thing where you can reuse them and Gap in the UK 75p off and to do that they then stamp it with this.

It’s relatively easy to fold it together and I haven’t undone this so I’ll just go through it and do that now and this is what we see we’re going to go inside so I’ve packed these 18 plates high so if there’s 17 plates they’re comfortable at 18 they start to bend over the packaging there at the back it’s about 23 studs this way and then about 11 studs this way. I’ve pushed these a little bit so in terms of getting four by fours in maybe another packet like that and then in the corner I’ve been able to slide in a plate a two by four brick another two by four brick and a plate and then in this case two they’re also how far deep it is I’ve been able to get two stacks of these sitting on top of each other.

So I think you know that’s pretty tight there’s not much more space in there and even there’s some sort of pushing because it is bulging a little bit so through the magic of editing let’s find out how much is in each and how they compare.

So for a pub jug stacked in this order this is the breakdown of each of these little sections here so in this section here you have 33 plates two bricks next one 36 plates four bricks next one 42 plates four bricks next one 51 plates four bricks next one 51 plates five bricks and then three plates on the end that then gives you a total of 216 4×4 plates 20 4×2 bricks and then this enabled you to have a lot of small pieces you could do a lot more than this depends upon how much you want to push it and whether or not the store will let you get away with it.

For the new boxes, if you do them in Stacks like this you’re going to have in that stack there is 18 then 18 18 18 18 and this here is then seven on the top plus seven underneath same thing again 18 18 18 18 7 plus 7. These ones here and then stacks of nine with another stack underneath so you have nine and nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine then in this corner little piece here you have four lots of two by four plates in the white and then four two by four bricks there taking that all together that gives you a ground total of 298 4×4 bricks four four by two bricks and then four two by four plates.

So overall in the Old Pad cups you get 216 4x4s versus 298 so you get an extra 82 in this okay you are getting slightly more 2×4 bricks and then it’s going to come down to how many small pieces you are comfortable with and can get away with stacking in the store.

Of course none of this is taking into consideration the actual time to go through and do this and it’s actually quite surprising this to stack like that took me about 10 minutes this the stack like that took about 20 because with this you’re just clicking the bricks together and counting up the stacks with this you’ve got to be aware of how many you’re stacking in each row and things like that just from actually putting all these together this was so much more enjoyable because while I was doing this I was actually having a chat to the staff member.

While I was doing this I was just focusing on making sure that I was getting the right number of plate stacks on each line surprisingly I think the new boxes are actually far better value than the original cups initially when I first heard of them moving onto the boxes I was quite cynical about it going this is going to be one of those shrinkflation sort of things but there’s always make much more sense to have square packaging rather than the rounds because it’s literally a matter of trying to pick a square peg into a round hole.

You know just in general this is a much better experience it’s not as time consuming and it makes a lot more sense.

The only thing I would have liked to have seen is for these boxes to be more in line with the numbering system which works with Lego because along this side it’s like 23 studs along this side it’s 11 studs and the height is 17 plates you know had they made that 24 studs had they made that 12 and okay that height there might be 18. it’s just going to make so much more sense in terms of being able to stack and pack them as then they’re in nice multiples of fours or sixes or twos yeah the dimensions that they have are basically three prime numbers 17 11 and 23.

Maybe that is intentional and it’s only the crazy people who go through and do things like this the thing that will be interesting in the future is just seeing how far you can push this I don’t feel I’ve pushed this a huge amount I mean I certainly feel that has been pushed to the absolute maximum and when I took that up to the counter I was almost prepared for them to say no.

In which case you’d lose about 51 plates and five bricks out of that to get that to close properly and this one you know if you’re skimming off the top and things like that you’ll probably lose on maybe plates just because of the way that some of these are stacked is there a more optimal stacking configuration from this than possibly could be I don’t think you get too much more happy to be proven wrong

However and from a storage point of view I think having these and having them stacked on top of one another is going to be more space and user friendly the only downside is is that if you have the lid closed on that yeah what’s in there where as opposed to this what’s in there these you can obviously say straight through what are your thoughts on the new boxes have you been able to come up with any optimal stacking configurations.

On your way out hit that Thumbs Up Button a subscribe and a share never goes astray thanks for watching this far and if you leave the word boxes in the comment we’ll know you’ve watched the whole thing if you’re looking for some Lego Storage Solutions check out this video if you want to see how our custom Lego Sonic the Hedgehog mock Compares with the official set check out this video alternatively if you’ve ever wondered why Lego monorail is so epic check out this video otherwise this might be of interest that’s it from us here at familybricks and we’ll see you in the next video.