Hands On With Robosen's Grimlock: a $1,700 T-Rex Transformer

pcmag.com:

I've now witnessed something cooler than Optimus Prime auto-transforming into a truck and back via voice command. Robosen—the robot company behind the various self-converting iterations of Optimus over the last couple of years, as well as the non-transforming Bumblebee G1—is launching a high-dollar version of the Dinobot leader, named Grimlock.

I got early access to one for testing—full name Transformers Grimlock Auto-Converting Robot - Flagship Collector's Edition(Opens in a new window)—and despite some bugs in the software, it's clear that the company has hit its stride with this Hasbro license.

I wrote in a previous story about Bumblebee how I hoped that any incremental improvements from that limited bot would "be applied to future members of the lineup ... maybe, fingers crossed, a Grimlock that can really go full T-Rex." That's why I was gobsmacked when an oversized Robosen package decorated with pictures of the OG Grimlock performing acts of destruction appeared at my door. I couldn't wait to evaluate this latest robot.

(If you need backstory: Optimus leads the Autobots, the good-guy transformers who came to Earth after the destruction of their planet Cybertron. In the original 1984 show(Opens in a new window)—now called Generation 1, or G1—the Autobots were inspired by old dino bones to create the Dinobots to serve as extra muscle in the fight against the evil Decepticons. The incredibly powerful Grimlock almost teamed up with the bad guys because he thought he should run everything. It took seeing Optimus being heroic to change Grimlock's tune and beg Optimus Prime's forgiveness.)

The box's arrival thrilled my five-and-half-year-old testing assistant, Pax (code name Paxitron X) even more. He's a Transformers