Looking to buy a retail Lego Mindstorm 2.0 NXT kit

[heytrobar]

I have a friend looking for a retail Lego Mindstorm 2.0 NXT kit for her son whom will turn 9 this coming August 10th. She had budgeted $300 and now it seems as though it is impossible to find the 2.0 kit now that the EV3 has been announced. She was thinking the EV3 would be good but it looks like the education kit that you can preorder is $340 and that does NOT include a CD (that is an extra $100). With the retail kit the CD was included for the $280 price. So, anyone have some suggestions? Here are questions I offer to you all:

Does anyone know of a place where she could look to buy the retail kit (all the online places are sold out like shop.lego.com, target, toysrus, walmart, etc)?
Does anyone know what the anticipated prices will be for the EV3 retail kit?
Does anyone know of a store in their area that has kits?
Does anyone have a NXT 2.0 kit that they want to sell for around $300?

Thanks,
Troy Barnes

[Gregor]

If you don't mind (mostly) slighty used, eBay is a good place to grab NXTs.

[rsisk]

Lego Education has NXTs for sale...

http://www.legoeducation.us/eng/char...ducation%20NXT

[Calvin Hartley]

As Gregor said, ebay is probably your best bet for an NXT. The EV3 retail is going to be about $350 I believe. In my opinion, this will probably be the better choice. Don't get me wrong, NXT is great, and I own several of them but the EV3 is naturally better in my opinion.

[fb39ca4]

Also check craigslist. If you live in a relatively large city, you should be able to find one for sale.

[heytrobar]

Thanks for all the comments!
I just have to ask, have any of you that suggested ebay actually looked? :-)
The prices on Ebay have gone up so the $300 budget is completely blown there, even with used kits (ok, I have not looked at many "used" kits but come on, it is for a birthday present )

I will keep my eye out but even in the Seattle area where I am I have not seen a Mindstorm kit on Craigslist in the past 7 months (I have been looking for other Lego kits).

Maybe some of you know corners of the web that may have old inventory that don't show up on web searches? Maybe you know of a local toy shop that still has some stock on their shelves?

I am hoping maybe so.

[orangemoore]

I found this website Robotshop.com

And when you hover over the new stock soon text it says that new sets will be available on August 1st, 2013. It seems that lego is going to continue the 2.0 version.

http://www.robotshop.com/lego-mindst...english-2.html

[Gdeaver]

Depending on the age of the recipient, You might want to see what the vexIQ set is. The full kit is 300$. Appears to be good bang for the buck. I bought a Lego Mindstorm for 189$ 2 Christmases ago for my nephew. Supply and demand.

[Calvin Hartley]

You may want to try bricklink.com. This is an "Unofficial LEGO Marketplace" where users can buy/sell anything LEGO related that they want to. Be warned sometimes the searching can be a bit difficult because there is simply so many items listed, but once you get the hang of it it does make sense. I did a quick search and it looks like you can probably get one for less than $300, give or take depending on shipping costs and New/Used. I've used this site often so please let me know if you have any questions about it.

I hope this helps
-Calvin

[heytrobar]

Thanks! The brinklink.com suggestion is very promising!!

[BSV]

Another option is to purchase the educational version and then download the free retail software direct from Lego at this link. The main difference is that the edu version seems to have a lot of tutorials that the retail version does not. But that's the version of the software you would get if you purchase at the store, anyway.

I was trying to by a set last summer at this time, and they were out-of-stock everyplace then as well. I wonder how many they produce each year, and if it is tied to need to supply 20,000 FLL teams at the beginning of August?

It is pretty ridiculous that people are asking $500+ for them, though.

[Greg McKaskle]

I have given demos of the new EV3 models and they are totally awesome. The elephant, the snake, and gyroBoy are my favorites.

One evening I'm at a university emceeing an event with sixty engineering students. While talking, I lean down, pull the models from behind the podium curtain, and turn the robots on. I stand back up to to face the audience and find that every last one of the students is now standing and has pulled out their cell phone and is filming and taking photos. Kinda surprising.

The next morning I take the models to a 2nd grade class and the kids went bonkers over the same models. The boys did seem to prefer the snake and the girls the elephant.

Anyway, my point is that if the EV3 is more available than NXT, you may want to upgrade. Both are great products, IMO.

Greg McKaskle