UPDATE #4 – Here is my full review with unboxing, build details, feature presentation and an outdoor field test in a quarry!
UPDATE #3 – According to zusammengebaut.com LEGO Germany confirmed that the release of the set will be delayed until October 2019 because of some production problems of certain parts. This delay does not affect the other Technic sets scheduled for August.
UPDATE #2 – Check out my detailed summary about the Powered Up system and the currently available components that will power this set as well
UPDATE – We received a some detailed images of this gigantic construction set from the Bauma 2019 convention that happened last week (image source – Promobricks)
LEGO announced the flagship Technic model of this year at Spielwarenmesse 2019 in Germany – it will be a Liebherr R 9800, one of the largest excavators in the world. The LEGO Technic 42100 set consists of more than 4,000 parts, seven motors and two Smart Hubs.
This confirms that the Technic variation of the Powered Up hub will have 4 ports compared to the 2 ports of the current “City” Powered Up hub.
The model will be equipped with LEGO Technic CONTROL +, apparently the Technic variant of the Powered Up system. It’ll have new electronic components and an associated free app with controlling and programming possibilities.
According to the news the price will be 449.99 EUR
Press release (translated from German, source)
With LEGO Technic CONTROL +, consisting of new electronic components and the associated free app, children and adults experience an even more authentic gaming experience. CONTROL + enables touchscreen control to provide realistic control and, for example, programming of simultaneous movements of the models. In addition, the app gives vehicle data of the model again.
LEGO Technic CONTROL + can be tested for the first time from 1 August 2019 with the replica of the Liebherr R 9800, one of the largest excavators in the world. The LEGO Technic model consists of more than 4,000 parts, seven motors and two Smart Hubs and can execute several movements at the same time. “LEGO Technic CONTROL + gives us the opportunity to create even more versatile LEGO Technic gaming experiences around the physical model. We are delighted to have Liebherr as a partner in one of the first LEGO Technic sets to incorporate this novelty, “said Niels Henrik Horsted, LEGO Technic Marketing Director. The cooperation is also ideal for Liebherr: “The fact that the LEGO Group is offering our Liebherr R 9800 as a construction kit confirms our motto ‘technology that inspires’ on a small scale. The detail and functionality that the model shows are fantastic. We are confident that we will not only be able to inspire LEGO fans but also many fans from our industry, “says Gregory Schuh, Marketing Manager for Liebherr Mining Hydraulic Excavators.
Better to be priced right unlike the PORSCHE £250 no power functions buggati £350 no power functions so with this massive kit with power whats the price £600+ well out of most peoples range thats why 80% go for your rivals like lepin and bella if they can do the porsch for £60 delivered from china and the buggati at £70 thats a heads up to lego to drop thier prices.
It’ll be 450 EUR. Lepin and friends steal ideas, don’t spend anything on product development, licenses and tons of other stuff. This set will be fully packed with electronics, good luck if you want that from the copycat brands…
Please, not this again. Respect intellectual property and copyright laws! It’s people like you that are the only reason Lepin, Decool and the like are still around.
Let’s make sure that Chinese manufacturers are discouraged from stealing hard earned designs and copy rights. Please don’t take away food from somebody’s table by buying cheap copy products. If you persist in buying from Chinese and other thiefs, honest designers may decide that they will not share their creations with us.
It is much cheaper to buy a gold necklace from a thief.
Should jewelers adjust their prices for that reason?
Parasites should never be defended or used as positive reference.
Lepin is a parasite that would not exist in its current scale without Lego.
Lastly, Lego is one of the world leaders of injection molded plastic. The quality of a lego piece is much higher compared to parasitic brands.
There is someting called reasonably pricing a product. No excuses like Lepin stealing ideas (besides the myth of quality is not that true today). If Apple, producing a high quality product like an iphone -with a hundred more times electronics and development involved compared to any lego set- would use the same poor arguments as some of you, an iphone should be priced at 5000 dollars. Open you eyes: if Lepin exists is because lego is very expensive and not everyone can afford it, when for the price of two or three sets you can by the latest iphone in the market!!
If Lego would not price their product carefully and reasonably the would simply go bankrupt. Lepin is not only stealing ideas, they spare the majority of the costs as I described before. You need to understand one thing – the material is just the fraction of the cost of an average product. There are all types of development and other costs that Lego is paying to create your average set. Then comes Lepin and and skips all of that with stealing the final product, paying only the price of the material (and if you ever so a Lepin Technic set, no the quality is still not the same) and the copy-paste work. That’s the very simple reason why they can be cheap. Without Lego Lepin simply would not exist.
Please, not this again. Respect intellectual property and copyright laws! It’s people like you that are the only reason Lepin, Decool and the like are still around.
hope its not out of reach of normal fans make more sell for less
Product development does cost a huge financial investment for LEGO (not to mention additional aspects). However, Buying a toy for that much money is not reasonable either.
I’d been able to purchase the fantastic 42055 excavator, but I did lose an arm (financially speaking). Now, it’s my kid’s turn.
NononononononononoNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THIS is their ‘hub’?????
Looks more like a dumbed-down Mindstorms controller.
Nononono…. PLEASE NO!
https://education.lego.com/en-us/products/lego-technic-large-hub/45601
Chill man… this is the hub for Spike Prime, that’s a completely different educational product. I’m 100% sure the Control+ hub won’t have a display and such features, and it is also expected to have 4 ports. It’ll probably have a different form factor.
I can’t recall Lego ever stating that the hub has four ports. That’ the generally accepted number, but I don’t know that it’s official.
It’s interesting though that this is the ‘Technic large hub’. Maybe the large hub’s baby brother is in the guts of this beast?…
It was not mentioned yet anywhere officially but that’s the logical number. 42100 has 7 motors and 2 hubs, that’s confirmed. This means the hub can’t have 2 ports only and I don’t think it’ll have 6 to leave 5 ports unused in this set.
What I meant by ‘baby brother’ was a smaller controller (e.g. four ports, no dot matrix, etc.) And yes, I do realize that the hub can’t have less than four ports
Yes it’ll be definitely something similar but smaller and without the display, speaker and no rechargeable battery (unfortunately).
I’m not going comment in intricacy of the set, but tbh a flagship needs to be flashy, a blockbuster, while here we get as gray as it can get, blocky excavator. Sets like Porshe, Bugatti, or from days of old (my days) the black sports car of the 18 wheelers are those that inspire and amaze.
No matter the complexity at the end of the day we have a big old gray excavator…dull.