This is one of the higher quality cube playsets with 8-magnets per 2cm (0.8") cube. Colors are bright and difficult to mar and magnets are strong. This set has Christmas-themed blocks plus some ice and water blocks that I'd rather were floors, doors, ornaments, or even dirt.A ton of brick blocks can be used to build an indoor scene with wreath, bells, and socks hung on the walls, but there are no wood or other floor blocks or doors to complete the scene. I suppose one could just make the table the floor.For outdoor scenes, there's a decent amount of snow on dirt but you'd really need 2-3 times as much of it to have a place to build something out of the brick blocks and still have room for a Christmas tree with all the gifts under it. The ice and water feel unnecessary for Christmas scenes and you'd need to buy multiple sets to do much with them.There aren't enough blocks to complete the setup shown on the main product photo, but at least the box art and some product photos show possible scenes. The second product photo shows how many of each block you get and these counts are accurate.I'm not fan of the giant snowflake blocks since snowflakes aren't that big and they don't look good anywhere, but at least there are only 2 included. The manual shows them being used in the air in a flat-picture scene, and I guess they make sense for that.When combining sets, beware that some sets contain 1" blocks instead of the 2cm blocks in this set, while others contain six magnets per cube (one per face) instead of 8 (one per corner). Personally, I prefer 8 magnet, 2cm blocks because they take up less space, are less expensive, and seem to stick together slightly better. But kids may find the 1" blocks are a better size for using other toy characters with.Each block rattles, which will please young ones. The rattle comes from a magnet near each corner of each cube that can rotate so you can connect any side of any block to adjacent blocks and perfectly align them, or they align on half-block steps as well.Sometimes blocks stick more strongly than other times. I suspect this is because the moving magnets put North poles on one side and South poles on the other, so blocks on the other sides are sticking N/S "sides" of magnets together which is likely a weaker connection. Basically, blocks will stick strongly on the first two opposite sides you connect and more weakly in the other four directions.Each block is plastic outside, formed of a "cup" of plastic with a plastic cap to complete the cube. Colors seem somewhat embedded in the plastic more than printed or stuck on. Whatever the process, it seems durable and is unaffected by light scratching with a fingernail.Overall, the quality of the set makes it worth the price since the magnets used in these blocks are expensive. I deduct 1 star for including water and ice blocks over floors, ornaments, or doors, and for some misleading product photos.
