So this is certainly an unusual release. Soundwave a genuine smart tablet (non-functional, mind you). I'm not familiar with the Xiaomi Mi Pad, I guess it's popular overseas? Anyways, in smartpad mode Soundwave is SOLID-- at least from the front. I mean, no extras whatsoever, a black screen surrounded by silver details on the sides... he's got the "Power", "Back" and... "New Tab?" buttons on the bottom, and although they aren't functional, little details on the sides like power cord holes, volume sliders, mic holes, and power buttons are all molded in where they should be (though the sliders don't work, unfortunately-- it's all merely molded in). From a casual glance it looks like the real thing... with a slightly shattered screen. Hasbro does a great job glossying up the black screen to de-emphasize the fact that it splits into lots and lots of parts-- and the fact that the gaps are black as well helps hide this-- but you can't completely hide all those seams in the tablet. What probably will make-or-break this mode for you, though, is that the illusion is all one-sided. Turn the tablet on its back and WHOA. It's a massive flat rectangle of spread out robot parts. It doesn't get in the way of the tablet silhouette at all, but it certainly kinda ruins the illusion (beyond the camera lens in the corner, which looks quite realistic)-- so it's best to just keep that side down. Because of this the tablet also feels a bit fragile, like if you accidentally sat on the toy it'd crack. I'm certainly not going to test whether that theory is true... but fortunately Soundwave comes in a very sleek, hard, and slim protective box, so I suggest saving that to store him in.
    Soundwave's transformation to robot mode involves a lot of steps, but is largely straightforward-- you mostly just fold up or out everything that can fold up or out into a robot-shaped toy. The only part that isn't fairly obvious are the little slivers that slide up on the side of the legs that also fold out a little tab to secure the halves of those legs together. Getting it back to tablet mode is definitely more complex, as you have to remember just how everything is situated. For the robot mode itself, it's MUCH better than I thought it would be given how good the tablet mode is. That said, not much makes it look like Soundwave. The head is similar to his movie version's head but with a faceplate, what with the longer, slimmer antennae and gray/white scheme. I love the "mask" around the blue eyes and the general look of the head. It's quite impressive that the head is made of THREE different sections compressed together, though because of this Soundwave can't move his head, unfortunately. The way parts of the front of the smartpad mode fold across the chest also somewhat mimics his tape deck-chest, but that's a bit of a stretch-- nothing else really says "Soundwave" at all. As you'd expect from a toy that becomes a smartpad, some parts are a bit 2-D-- the worst offenders are the lower arms and upper legs, though for the most part this is kept from being too much of an eyesore. The feet are extremely odd and probably the weakest part of this mode, as there's just so many parts folded around each other that the feet are ludicrously big compared to how thin most of the rest of this toy is-- the feet also stick out from the SIDES of the lower legs, which looks pretty weird. The main body is very solid overall, though from a straight-on side view you can see an obvious gap in betwen the front and back because of the transformation. (Still, that's a fairly minor quibble, given it has to be at a fairly precise angle to see through him.) I love the "armor skirt" made out of small portions of the alt mode, and the shoulders made out of the square corners of the smartpad mode look pretty nice, especially with that orange popping out of there and giving what is otherwise a monochrome scheme some color. This and some small bits on his backpack are the only orange, with the rest of Soundwave being either black, silver, or white. Normally this would be a fairly dull color scheme, but a LOT of his gray plastic is either silver or metallic gunmetal gray paint, which just looks awesome. Yes, he does have that blah light milky gray plastic (along with some darker milky gray plastic), but it's thankfully mostly only used on the parts that fold up against other parts tightly, which would probably cause paint scraping if they were silver, so I'm okay with that. There's lots of small parts on the robot mode so there's not a LOT of area for extra mold detailing, but wherever there is space it's FILLED with circuitry and tech detailing, which looks great. Soundwave's backpack has two extra little wings, and by itself is a bit unwieldy, but it can actually slide off and detach-- and, given the two wings, I ASSUME this is supposed to be Laserbeak, though there's no visible head and the instructions don't name it as such. I just find it a neat little extra. Soundwave also has a shield which can fit on the side of either of his arms-- it's a decent size, but obviously just a way to get part of the smartpad screen out of the way-- and he has two guns formed from one end of the smartpad mode. The guns are pretty darned cool, as they can be wielded separately or combined together to form a longer "super gun". He can hold the gun fairly solidly, but due to the long flat shape of the shield it can fall off easily. As for articulation, in this mode Soundwave can move at the shoulders (at two points; four if you count the shoulder pad movement), elbows (at two points), hips (at two points, with an additional point at the hinge of each "skirt" piece), knees (at two points), ankles (at two points), and at each toe at two points. Beyond waist and head rotation that's about as much as you could reasonably ask for, and given his big clonkin' feet he's very stable for posing. (His hips are also ratcheted for extra support.)
    Xiaomi Pad Soundwave is definitely more of a "collector-focused" piece, given the complexity of transformation, what seems like a slightly fragile alt mode, and just how many little parts there are, but if you don't mind that this is a pretty nice score at $40-- or even a slight markup. There are a few downsides, such as a few "2-D" parts, odd feet, and the biggest one being that his tablet mode is only one-sided-- but he's an incredibly unique Transformer and definitely worth a pickup if you're a Soundwave fan who also wants something a bit different. Mildly recommended.

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Review by Beastbot

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