A quick comparison: Lego mini figures and DST Mini-Mates

Lego Fly (L) and MiniMate Tali (R)

One of the most common questions around Dimond Select Toys' MiniMates line from people who haven't seen them in real life is how they compare to Lego figures.  To help answer that question, I've taken some comparison photos of a representative from each line.

Our representatives for the day are both blind bag figures. On the Lego side we have The Fly (they call him "Fly Monster", I assume because it's not licenced as a movie tie-in) from the Series 14: Monsters release. On the MiniMate side, we have Tali from the Mass Effect: Series 1 release. Both figures have the standard body from each of their representative lines, although they do have unique head sculpts: the standard heads on both lines are peg-shaped.

There are some obvious similarities: Both have similar rectangular torsos, claw-like hands that can hold accessories, and peg-negative holes in their feet. On the flip side, the most obvious difference is the height difference: the MiniMates are a good head taller than the Lego figures.  The heads and torsos are similar in size, so the height difference is mainly due to the very different limbs on the bodies.

Rear view: you can see the relative lack of detail on the Lego figure.

Minimates have jointed knees and elbows, which both improves their pose-ability and means that they have much longer limbs than their Lego equivalents. They also have shoulder ball joints, which means that they can lift their arms out to the side, whereas the Lego figures can only swing their arms.

Tali can lift her arm out to the side, while The Fly can only swing his arms

Finally, if you're wondering about compatibility, the answer is a qualified yes. They both fit similar but not identical peg sizes. The Lego pegs are slightly smaller, which means that while The Fly can't fit all the way onto Tali's stand, he does manage to fit most of the way with a little force. And on the flip side, Tali is slightly loose on Lego pegs, but not so loose that she falls over (and I've heard of MiniMate collectors who keep their figures displayed on Lego boards).

The Fly is impressed by Tali's ability to run away with bent knees and elbows.

And that's it! If you have any other questions about these figures, let me know and I'll do my best to answer them.  At some point I'd like to do another comparison with the MegaBloks figures, as well as the now-retired Palisades ones.