If you’re a LEGO geek and want to browse the different sets and mini figures on your iPhone, it can be complicated to do using the internet. It can be pretty slow, and what if you don’t even have a 3G signal? Well, now, as Apple would say, there’s an app for that.
The Unofficial LEGO Minifigure Catalog ($2.99, link) features a huge database of LEGO sets, minifigures and mini figure heads – 13,779 to be exact. It allows the LEGO fan to browse seamlessly through sets and mini figures without the need for an internet signal and is a brilliant tool for any LEGO geek!
Layout
The app is divided into five sections: “Browse”, “Search”, “Favorites”, “My Figs” and Settings. The first of these allows to to look through all the different themes, such as Star Wars, Harry Potter, City and many more. You can also, if you prefer, sort the LEGO by year, and see what sets were released when. This goes all the way back to 1964, so you can find out what the very first sets were and how many pieces they had, but obviously they lack detail compared to the more modern sets.
The second section is the basic search functionality. Got a set or specific minifig in mind? Just search for it and you will find it. It’s instant search, so it takes no time to go through the thousands of sets and mini figures in the database, which is pretty impressive.
The “Favourites” and “My Figs” sections allow you to view what sets/minifigures you already have. You can add as many as you want, and it’s pretty handy if you want to make a list of your most wanted LEGO.
Finally, the “Settings” allow to you to link your Brickset account to the app (if you have one).
Usability
The usability overall is great. The app is generally smooth and it is very easy to navigate between sections. Having said that, when you scroll down, it takes a few seconds to load the next minifigs/sets. This is not a big deal, but it does slightly hinder the fluidity of the app.
As far as the actual data sheets themselves are concerned, they could not be better. For minifigs the theme, year, Bricklink ID Number, number of parts and sets are listed, whereas for sets the Bricklink ID, year, pieces, theme and minifigures are shown.
Verdict
The Unoffical LEGO Minifigure Catalog is a really useful app for any LEGO fan. You can browse every single LEGO set ever created anywhere and you can inventory your own sets and keep things organised. You really can’t fault it at all, even though the need to load every time you scroll down can hinder the general fluidity of the app.
A great feature they could add would be the ability to browse individual pieces, but that would be a mammoth task, considering that there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of LEGO pieces in existence. You can understand why they haven’t done it.
Price: $2.99 (link)
Rating: 5/5[rating:5]
Pros
- Huge LEGO database, thousands of sets/minifigures
- Simple layout, easy to use
- Create your own LEGO favorites list and inventory your mini figures
- Ability to link with your Brickset account
Cons
- Needs to load every time you scroll down, but this only takes seconds
