MagVision Toys 104-Piece Magnetic Tile Building Set

Like many who have reviewed this product, I was hesitant to spend nearly twice as much on the name-brand Magna-Tiles as this product. But I've jumped the gun - before arriving at this product, I surveyed all of the off-brand magnet-tile products sold and determined that MagWorld's offering appeared to be the next best thing. The rivets are key - and I'll explain why in a moment. On the other hand, I felt that this toy would get a lot of use in my household and didn't want to invest in an inferior product.So I bought both sets. It's unfortunately that Amazon doesn't provide the ability to upload a photo (only a video) as I took a nice side-by-side shot of the construction of both items.By way of background, I am a mechanical engineer and have been in the product development industry for 12 years and the toy business for 8. I travel to China, I've been to the factories, and I know how and why these products are constructed the way that they are. Here's the skinny:1) The rivets are critical. The reason is this - their purpose is redundancy. Both of these products are constructed the same way. The magnets are sandwiched between two pieces of semi-translucent plastic which are then attached to one another, most likely via a process called "sonic welding". The magnets are thereby "trapped" inside. This is an excellent and appropriate way to do this. The purpose of the rivets is to provide a backup mechanism to hold the two shells together in the event that the sonic weld failed or, more likely, didn't take place at all for some reason - not impossible on a mass production line. It's this double-mechanism that makes the construction method of these items so important. Loose magnets are a danger, as we all know.2) The interior lines or "ribs", as they are called, are present on both products. Some have noted that the MagWorld product appears flimsier and that might be ever so slightly true but not at the expense of the play-value of the product. The reason is this. Each company designed the placement of their ribs differently. Magna-Tiles puts the ribs through the center of the tiles giving them their characteristic look. MagWorld uses what I would call clearly a more attractive approach - the ribs are parallel to the edges, but at a slight cost to rigidity. They serve the same purpose in both products - one takes a slight trade-off in strength and the other gets a slight advantage in aesthetic. I think it's non-consequential.3) Other than that, I might argue that the "finish" of the Magna-Tiles (i.e. the roughness of the edges) is slightly better than on the MagWorld product but you'd really have to have them side-by-side to notice.4) The MagWorld tiles are slightly thicker than the Magna-Tiles but this is really only apparent when stacking many of the tiles together and then looking at them side-by-side. The two brands do inter-operate although I would recommend choosing a brand and going with it for the long term rather than mixing and matching.So, in conclusion, I give this product 4.5 stars (I rated it a 4). My daughter joyfully jumped all over her birthday gift (she uses some mag-building product at pre-school) and, in defense of Magna-Tiles, she calls them "Magna-Tiles" but frankly they're nearly identical. I suppose that this means that were I to review the Magna-Tiles, I would give them a 5, but only by a nose. This product costs about 40% less than the original, which at the time of purchase was well over a hundred dollars. It's a big difference and I would say that the MagWorld product is maybe only 5% less good than the name brand. Therefore, the cost-benefit to me was obvious.I will update this review if we encounter any play-time or quality issues in the future. FYI, presumably to save cost this product does come in an unmarked plain, white box. That may be a consideration for gift-giving ... or a feature! Have your child design the packaging herself!

We got a set of these last fall and they have been a huge hit with all of our students. They've stood up to 5 months of heavy use, and are one of our most popular toys. Our almost-2-year-olds can use them with a little assistance (much less than they need for traditional wooden blocks) and our 4's and 5's create pretend cities, zoos, and vehicles. We wanted to buy three more sets because they were such a hit, but the price went up from $70 to $120 for the 100-piece set, while competitors were still charging $80. We went with the Stick and Stack brand, which is already getting scratches and cracked corners. We do NOT recommend the Stick and Stack brand. But at $120, we would probably not buy these again either. The product is great, but not worth an extra $40-50.

I had so very much wanted to love these tiles, especially in light of the very helpful positive review posted by reviewer "Hock." (That review was what prompted me to make this purchase). If you are looking for a Magna Tiles type of toy, I really think there is a lot to be said for the MagWorld version. However, ultimately the drawbacks made me decide to send these back. Here's our experience with them:Pros:1) Safety - As mentioned in previous reviews, these are held shut with rivets. Many of the other brands of clear magnet tile toys are missing the rivets, and there have been reviewers complaining of those brands cracking and letting magnets out. Given the danger associated with children swallowing magnets, I just wasn't going to take that risk, no matter how inexpensive those versions may be.2) Magnet strength - Our public library has a set of Magna Tiles brand tiles that we play with regularly, so we are pretty familiar with them, and the magnets in the MagWorld version are every bit as strong (I may be imagining it, but at times I felt they might even be stronger). Previous reviews for MagWorld complained that they weren't as strong as Magformers. I don't think that's a good comparison because those are different types of toys (Magformers are hollow magnetic shapes, MagWorld Toys are the clear, solid plastic tile type like Magna Tiles).3) Price - These are significantly more affordable than the Magna Tiles brand and make such a toy more accessible to a wider range of budgets.4) Polarity - Just like with the Magna Tiles brand, the tiles' attraction to one another is not dependent on the user's ability to turn the right sides of the pieces towards each other. With many of the other brands, reviewers complained of the tiles repelling each other if they weren't turned just so. It was nice to see that potential source of frustration eliminated here.5) Durability - these tiles seem really strong, despite that there is less infrastructure in the centers. I love that MagWorld customer service has been responding to reviews, and that they offered the challenge of taking a hammer to these. They stand by their product and that bodes well for the toy's useful lifetime.So why am I sending them back?Cons:1) They look used - I don't believe they actually were used, I'm sure I got a new set, but a considerable portion of them were very noticeably scratched and scuffed. This makes them not so suitable for gift giving, which is the primary reason I bought them. This had been mentioned in another review and I figured it was because it was sent to that reviewer as a sample. I paid for these and got them looking pretty beat up. This is the reason I am returning them. (I should add that the lack of interesting packaging did not bother me in the least. I'm minimalist about those sort of things, so that wasn't a consideration for me.) The other cons that follow are not reason enough to send them back, just things that I would change if I could:2) Color distribution - there were double the number of orange and blue squares in my two sets as there were red and yellow. I would have liked to have an even set.3) Color saturation - the original Magna Tiles are really neat in that when you stack two different colors, you'll see a color that is a blend of the two you are stacking. The MagWorld tiles are so lightly tinted that this doesn't happen (they still have great color as standalone tiles, but if you want to explore colors and lights with your little one, they may not be as effective for that).All in all, I think there is a lot to say for this new contender, but ultimately, the worn out condition they arrived in has me reconsidering other toys.

These are very neat. They are a pretty hard plastic. We have stepped on them and my 18 month old has thrown them across the room and we have faux wood flooring. Yes they get a little scratched up but I expected that with plastic. The magnets work like magnets should. Magnets are not perfect. Some things you build are easily more destroyed than others. Some can fall with a small tap. Sometimes you get one piece that has the opposite effect just flip it over and most of the time that fixes the issues I expected that because they are magnets. I think we will have this set for many years. As an adult I love to play with things like this. My son loves it when I build because he gets to destroy it!