LEGO Icons Transformers 10358 Soundwave review

10358 Soundwave builds upon everything great about LEGO Transformers so far to offer the best LEGO Transformer set yet.

Finally, a cool LEGO Transformer. Following on from good guys 10302 Optimus Prime and 10338 Bumblebee, at long last we have a Decepticon to do battle with, and not just any Decepticon, but one of the most iconic ones – 10358 Soundwave.

Anyone with any knowledge or experience of G1 Transformers and the original television series from the mid-1980s will very much know Soundwave’s standing, both for what he was as a character and what he was as a toy. There was no other Transformer on either side comparable with Soundwave, thanks in no small part to his monotone, robotic voice that delivered every line in such a particular and distinctive way. And for any 10-year-old watching Transformers, he was by far the coolest as a result.

Amongst the lead characters from the cartoon and most popular toys, Soundwave was also unique for transforming into an everyday object. Where the others turned into vehicles or weapons, Soundwave was the Decepticon Communications Officer, and carried out tasks such as reconnaissance and transmissions, and so rather fittingly transformed in a microcassette recorder (if you are too young to know what that is, I’m not going to explain – they were just the style at the time, ok). He had a collection of microcassette Transformers that he carried around with him and could eject out of his chest, and who – for an otherwise generally emotionless robot – he had a close relationship with.

Soundwave has always stood as one of the most popular Transformers and one of the best-selling characters in toy form too, so with LEGO Icons switching their attention from Autobots to Decepticons for this third LEGO Transformer, who better to build?

10358 Soundwave

Release: Aug 1, 2025

Retiring: TBC

Price: £159.99 / $189.99 / €179.99

Pieces: 1,505

Minifigures: 0

Anyone who is familiar with how 10302 Optimus Prime or 10338 Bumblebee come together will be tempted to think that they know what to expect when it comes to the build for 10358 Soundwave, and, in general terms, you’d be right. You build sections of the character in robot mode – hips, torso, arm, arm, leg, leg, feet, head – before they come together in impressive size and 1984-toy-accuracy. That’s an oversimplification of a far more engaging process, though, packed with interesting details and a fair few novelties.

The first of these are built through the initial two bags, as you piece together Laserbeak and Ravage – two smaller Transformers that can be ejected out of Soundwave’s chest in cassette tape form – and a mini transformed version of Soundwave.

Whilst this latter build is – as the instruction booklet states – included so as to represent Soundwave’s ability to shift in mass and quite literally shrink down, it also inadvertently serves as an excellent companion piece to display alongside the completed Decepticon. This is primarily because the cooler mode to display the model in is very much its robot form, and as a result the smaller model of the transformed mode serves as a nice representation of what he can transform down to. Wouldn’t it have been just as nice to have a mini red truck and yellow Beetle to display respectively next to Optimus Prime and Bumblebee?

As we say, these are big novelties to begin 10358 with, before you move into a LEGO build process for robot mode Soundwave that for the most part is as you would expect, if you have built either of the other two. Aside from this not actually being the full picture, it’s no criticism, nor is it an indication that this is uninteresting for anyone who has yet to experience building a LEGO Transformer. Far from it – there’s nothing else quite like a LEGO Transformer, and each one is different to the next. There may be echoes of various LEGO mechs past and present, a few Technic functions thrown in there too, but altogether and with consideration to the two-in-one nature of these sets, there’s a continued fascination as you put Soundwave together piece by piece: how exactly will this work?

And then, with Soundwave there are the things that make him very different to build – namely for that opening chest to store one of the two cassette tape Transformers you built at the start, and – above everything else, the single thing that makes 10358 Soundwave the very best LEGO Transformer yet – a sound brick. We did say one of the defining characteristics to Soundwave and what made him so unique and so iconic to generations of Transformers fans was his voice, and the LEGO Group expertly and generously acknowledges that with the inclusion of this sound brick.

You get it early into building Soundwave and you’ll undoubtedly pause the build to play through the various sound clips it generates, from voice clips of Soundwave and some of his memorable quotes, to sound effects and music notes from the 1980s cartoon, and – as the instructions reveal – some lines exclusively recorded for this LEGO set. It may surprise you just how many sound clips there are to play through, and seemingly on random, but each one is excellent and adds a level of authenticity and hands-on fun that just elevates the LEGO experience here.

And that is also thanks to how it is built into the model and for how you activate it. Of course, it’s by pressing the ‘PLAY’ button on Soundwave’s front, just underneath the cassette holder.

Once you’ve managed to stop playing with it and actually build the sound brick into the model, you very quickly move into completing the torso, which includes the cassette holder. The build may feel overly detailed in places, but every odd connection and extra plate-based construction inside is geared towards that final and very impressive functionality that opens and closes the chest piece in exactly the same way a cassette player would open.

The design team has gone the extra mile to add an authentic effect to the opening and closing of it, aided by an open button, and the end result is just fantastic. It’s a potentially small detail, but it’s also probably – sound brick aside – the thing you’ll end up playing with the most here. Smart design.

Indeed, across the entire set, there are considerations worked in that just speak to quality design and a brilliant LEGO experience in build and play. Whilst all the little novelties are excellent, the most important factor for 10358 Soundwave is how impressive and accurate the final, completed model is.

This thing towers tall, matching 10302 Optimus Prime in height, with accurate proportions and all the right details in place across the design just as you may remember the original toy, or the character as he appeared in the cartoon – complete with the option to change the visor colour between yellow and red depending on if you want to better match toy or cartoon version (yellow for toy, red for cartoon).

Soundwave is very poseable too in robot form, offering a relatively good range of motion and different stances for play or display. The transformation from robot to cassette player is relatively straightforward, at least in comparison to the fiddlier 10338 Bumblebee, and in cassette player mode, Soundwave looks just as good. If only this was the 1980s and a tape player wouldn’t stick out so much, then Soundwave would be just as good again at blending in. As it is, 10358 Soundwave stands tall and proud, a fine addition to any LEGO collection, and if you’ve got space for only one LEGO Transformer, this is the one to get.

10302 Optimus Prime and 10358 Soundwave comparison

10302 Optimus Prime and 10358 Soundwave are two of the largest original G1 Transformers and come in at a similar size in the 1980s cartoon. Even if scale in the show wasn’t the most consistent and with consideration for how Soundwave could shrink down to a much smaller microcassette player, generally speaking Soundwave is measured in robot form in the cartoon to be 5.5m tall, whilst Prime comes in at 6m.

In LEGO toy form, they are even more closely matched in a lot of ways, across very similar piece-counts and final builds that measure to a couple of centimetres of each other (in Optimus Prime’s favour at 35cm tall). With broader construction of the two LEGO sets being closely matched, the poseability of each model is very similar, albeit with Soundwave benefiting from ratcheted joints at the knees.

There’s very little to separate the two LEGO Transformers in size or impressiveness, whilst from a collection point of view, both make for excellent and highly desirable additions. For us, the inclusion of the sound brick does edge in Soundwave’s favour as it adds an extra level of dynamism in play and display. Plus, the supplementary builds of two of the cassette tape Transformers and the micro version of transformed Soundwave are excellent extra features to the 2025 release.

How does 10358 Soundwave transform?

10358 Soundwave‘s transformation process from robot mode to microcassette recorder is relatively simple, albeit spread over a number of steps listed below. The LEGO Icons team mirrored the original Soundwave toy’s transformation as much as possible, adding in a few extra steps just to make allowances for the LEGO nature of this version.

Also included in 10358 Soundwave are Laserbeak and Ravage, two of the small army of microcassette Decepticons that Soundwave carries around and can eject out of his chest whenever called upon. The transformations for these two are simple but effective, once more closely resembling how the original 1980s toys transformed.

Our honest opinion: There’s nothing to fault with 10358 Soundwave thanks to the LEGO Icons team building on what was successful with the first two LEGO Transformers. This is the best one yet, and not just because he can talk – but that really does help.

This LEGO set was provided by the LEGO Group for review purposes.

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