Laserbeak is one of the most unique toys in the Armada line, for three major reasons: First and foremost, he has no Minicon interaction whatsoever. He's a completely "loner" toy. Second, he's about the same size toy-wise as he is in the show (the size of a child's digicam). Laserbeak's meant to be a roleplay toy of sorts (hence the name of the size category), so its owner can pretend they're Rad or Alexis or something. He's not to scale with the "normal" Armada toys at all. Last but not least, Laserbeak is the only Armada toy that has an animal alt mode- that of a mecha-bird.
    Laserbeak's "digicam" mode is probably the most convincing of his three modes. It's generally the shape and size of a digicam (although most digicams don't have two lenses shaped like that...). It has molded-in buttons (it's not a working digicam, mind you), a flip-out "viewer" with a picture of Optimus Prime pasted on the inside of it, and a cloth strap to put around your arm (if your arm's small enough to fit in the strap, that is). There's also a nicely molded, painted Autobot symbol on the rear. The colors are really what I don't like. The bright orange and dark blue just... completely and totally clash. Not to mention I've NEVER seen a bright orange camcorder in my life. I liked Laserbeak's prototype color scheme of red and black MUCH better. Supposedly, this was changed because of safety law reasons, because of Laserbeak's gun mode, which I'll get to later. Laserbeak is also noticeably lacking in detailing, both mold- and paint-wise. Although some of his "buttons" are speaker are painted, much more detailing would have been appreciated, especially on the buttons on the inside of the viewfinder and on the "face". Although Laserbeak's mold detailing is... acceptable, I wouldn't go any farther than that. Some large, undetailed areas make this look like too simplistic of a toy for the Armada line. As for Laserbeak's sound gimmicks, all except one can be activated in this mode, but only two are "meant" to be. If you press the front gray button, Laserbeak will alternate between a "rewinding" sound and a "snapping picture" sound. Neat, if not a bit fuzzy.
    Laserbeak's gun mode is simple. Close the viewfinder, pull out the bottom trigger. Done. In fact, it's TOO simple. The gun doesn't look like a gun at all, but a stubby camera with a trigger. THIS was worth making the color scheme bright orange? Uh-uh. Laserbeak has another sound buttom in this mode, on the trigger. Press it and a shooting sound is made. Not spectacular, but not particularly bad, either.
    Laserbeak's mecha-bird mode takes... some getting used too, but it's not THAT bad. The weird-eyed face with the two asymetrical lenses and no beak are what really throw you off. Other than that, this mode is alright (ignoring the color scheme, of course), and is rather identifiable as a bird. The cloth band also sorta doubles as a tail. The transformation is mostly automatic, which is kinda cool, but not overly impressive. The posability is pretty limited, though- the head can move up and down, and the legs can move back and forth at the ankles and hips. That's it. I suppose it you want to get technical, Laserbeak can also "flap" his wings if you push them down and allow them to pop back up via their spring mechanism, but that's pushing it. His feet are somewhat stable in this mode, as long as you don't have them posed too awkwardly. Laserbeak has four sound features available in this mode, all of which can kind of apply to this mode; press the forward sound button for the aforementioned two camera sound features. Press the back grey sound button to cycle between a bird "screech" sound and an alternate firing sound (I THINK Laserbeak can fire from his eyes in this mode....).
    Overall, Laserbeak is a nice gift for the young fan just getting into Transformers, but little else. His transformation is TOO simplistic for the older kids and Transfans, and he's not to scale with the other TF figures at all, limiting playability a little. His colors, absence of Minicon interaction, awkward gun mode, and sparse paint detailing don't help him out, either. He just seems like he's in a completely different line than the rest of the toys. Thusly, I'd only recommend him to little kids or completists.

Review by Beastbot

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