They have been shipping now for a week or two now and the posts on the Google groups are mostly not positive.
A lot of the new features are not working or implemented in the firmware and that's after users have updated it in order to get them to print at all.
One of the posts I read was from someone who asked for a sample print before ordering, he was sent a sample from a Rep2 as apparently there is no difference in quality.
Maybe the Blue Peter ones were from a Rep2 as well.