Item 1701 Enterprise “HD”

Year 2009

Manufactured by Diamond Select Toys “DST”

  With this being only my third review for the reviews section here, I’m going to try and keep it simple. I’ll divide up the subjects and address one at a time.

 Packaging

The packaging is nice enough but little different from the TOS 1701’s before it. The HD sticker on the front being the only immediate sign of what it was. Getting the ship out was easy enough with only two straps to hold it in.

Sounds

  The ships come with the following sounds.

(with background bridge noise) This is Captain James T Kirk of the United Federation of planet. I’m sure that it should say planets, but mine cuts off the s at the end.

James Kirk, commanding the Starship Enterprise.

Mr Scott, ready the transporter room.

Photon Torpedoes firing.

Energize (then the sound of beaming

Ship going into warp).

Paint

  The paint is not bad really. I find that the “Rust Ring” in the top front of the saucer section is a little too neat to be a rust ring. While I do think that it adds to the look, it’s just too orderly in the nicely laid out rectangle patterns. I think that if one had the ability with an airbrush, wonders could be done. However, as I said, it looks nice there and I wouldn’t remove it.

Here is a comparison to what I call the standard Enterprise

There is a minor stripe problem on the nacelle, but none anywhere else that I could find. There is also a sticker placement that is a tad bit sloppy on one side.

Seams

For the most part the seems are fairly nice and tight. The few exceptions that I found are at the front of the nacelles. The gap is nothing huge but are something that I have not noticed on the earlier ships. When the ship is on what I call “Lighting On” mode is when it’s most apparent as it makes for some light bleed. Also, I doubt that this is related but while checking the light bleed in a very dark room I noticed that the right nacelle (holding the ship with the saucer section towards you) bleeds light right through the plastic back as far as a half inch, while the left side does not. Is if the plastic in thinner on this one side.  The other spot is at the top front of the saucer section. This is not a big gap at all, but for some reason it bugs me a little.

Lighting

More or less the same lighting as the Enterprise’s that came before this one, the bridge, the front of the nacelles, a flashing red and a flashing green light on the top and bottom of the saucer section.  There is a green light, it looks like it should light up located right above the shuttle bay doors, but it does not light up. I have read where some have said that the ends of the nacelles on this one are lighter causing the leds to be easier to see. After comparing, it looks the same to me as the different 1701’s ones that came before. One nice touch with this is that if you hold down on the bridge, the ship will light up and stay lit up until you push again on the bridge again to shut it down or the batteries go dead. I did not test the battery life in this mode, but using LEDs one expect a reasonable life.

Conclusion

I really like this one and in fact I have added it to my very small display of unboxed ships that I have in my computer room. I admit that I am not as hard core on minor flaws as some of my other collector friends, and this has some small flaws, but this ship looks good on display.  When you figure in the cost of this for what you get, in my opinion, this is one of the, if not thee the best of the 1701 Enterprises DST has made and worth picking up.  I give it 3.75 out of a max of 5

Mark

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