AlphaBriks and Classic Brik Set review (age 4+) Sent by Strictly Briks.

Strictly Briks manufacture building blocks and other elements which are designed to work along with your own collection of building products and give you new and different options during play. We've been sent a couple of products to review. A 156 piece Classic Brik Set and the Strictly Briks AlphaBriks Set, which contains a 10" x 10" green baseplate, 100 letter and symbol tiles plus drawstring storage bag.

Strictly Briks produce elements you won't find from other manufacturers of building blocks, such as tall stacks to create levels, silicone baseplates, trap doors, flexible joining pieces and much more.

The packaging is minimal, but basically thick plastic bags. The Classic Briks bag is resealable, but I imagine most will be discarded. Easy to open and Christmas morning-friendly, but not currently planet-friendly.

The 156 Classic Briks are very well made and come in a good variety of interesting colours, including transparent (there are 36 colours in total available). They fit very well together and are very similar to other plastic construction bricks you might use.

The AlphaBriks set consists of 100 letter tiles, green baseplate and a drawstring storage bag. I always love when manufacturers include storage options, especially when you have lots of little parts to lose. It's big enough to fit all of our Strictly Briks - except obviously the baseplate.

The green baseplate is a nice one. A standard sort of depth at 1/3 of a brick, it is stackable and can accept bricks on either side, so you can build upwards and downwards really easily.

The letter tiles are really what make the difference. Not something we are used to and they've been carefully designed to be really user-friendly. They have a special shaping on the rear, so that you can remove them from other bricks and plates really easily. The shaping also makes them a doddle to pick up from a flat surface - whichever way up they fall.

The variety of letters is good, although unusual actually for an English letter set, but we've found we can usually make the phrase we want. I do have issue with the fact that they are capitals. When you are dealing with young children who are learner readers I much prefer a mix, but mainly lower case letters. I'm also not a fan of mis-spelling familiar words, so the name Brik annoys me, but it's not going to be confusing for my boys at 9 and 10.

Overall I'm very impressed with the quality and the usefulness. Clutch power is good, they don't fall off and they aren't tight to remove. The AlphaBriks are a good idea and they remove very easily and cleverly. My family have clearly enjoyed changing the messages on the board, and the Briks are compatible with those we have already from other manufacturers. Good range of colour and a good quality plastic.

The AlphaBriks set costs £14.99rrp and the 156 piece Classic Brik Set is £6.99rrp. You can find Strictly Briks On Amazon or take a look at the Strictly Briks website to see the whole range. 

We were sent our Strictly Briks for review.