Feature:
This unit packs a lot of features for the price but unlike most feature full products I've seen in the same price range, Yamaha did not take short cuts in the quality of the product in order to sell it just on features. I only gave a 9 out of 10 as I really need more phantom power mic inputs (lots of condensor mics) and this unit only has two. I would of gladly paid more for more of these connections. The i88x only has two XLR ports as well so it gets expensive buying a bunch of these to only use the 2 XLR ports on each one (though being fair these are very clean mic pre-amps and I've seen other 2 channel mic pre-amps costing just as much and the mLAN makes it simple to connect them all). My favorite feature however has to be the mLAN capabilities. This is simply brilliant. I was tired of windows updates breaking my other hardware drivers and then waiting for each manufacturer to fix their drivers for my system to work again. I am a software developer and know how much time and money is put into maintaining drivers long after a product has been sold meaning a product's retail price has to include 'projected' future maintenance time into it. mLAN can solve this problem and do to the recording studio what midi did to electronic musical instruments. To explain further, if I develop a GM midi product/device I only need to worry about making my product communicate with the midi ports following the GM midi standard. I do not need to worry about what midi device is connected at the other end (including a Windows or Mac computer) as they simply also communicate with their midi port and not my specific device. If the GM midi standard remains the same I never have to worry about fixing my product's drivers. So if MS comes out with a new version of windows the maker of my sound card has to make sure the midi ports still work). This would save the developer of the midi product a fortune to know future midi driver updates are not their responsibility (as long as the standards stay the same). mLAN is following the same concept as midi and Mac is already building mLAN drivers directly into their OS now meaning Mac themselves are going to guarantee that your mac will work with mLAN. As for Microsoft if the driver breaks there are already over 40 licensed mLAN manufacturers whose entire mLAN product line will not work with winXP until the drivers are fixed so instead of each manufacturer being responsible for drivers for each of their products, they all are focused on just one shared driver. All this said mLAN is still a very new technology in the real world (it's been on paper for a while) so there are going to be all the bugs that come with that. For me I had no compatiblity issues and it installed and was working perfectly within 10 minutes. A cool new development is there are developments (some people have already reported success) in having two or more 01x units installed on one computer giving them 28 channels of audio per 01x unit. This means if 28 channels sounds too limiting for what you might need down the road you can likely add a second or third 01x.

Quality:
Excellent sound, durability and layout. I can easily navigate my way around on this mixer. I also have a few deviced connected on the mLAN network now and easily 20 feet of firewire cable in total connecting everything and I still have just a 5 millisecond latency time. To give a comparison, on the same computer I had 13 times longer latency times when I just used one M-Audio Delta 1010 with a 5 ft patch cable and only that one device.

Value:
You simply cannot get this many features at this quality for this price. For example, to buy a mackie controllers which is just one feature of this product cost almost as much as this product does. Wow. I think this is mostly because the mLAN technology supporting the 01x seriously reduces the amount of future driver development they will need to invest to keep this running in the future and any mLAN driver development needed is shared by all mLAN licensed manufacturers and all of their mLAN products.

Desirability:
It has some cool features like automated faders but this is pretty much standard with any digital mixer so one wouldn't buy it for that feature alone. I needed to have my recording studio portable and for the almost 11 months I've owned my 01x while with a client I have not had a single problem, conflict or downtime due to the 01x or any mLAN device connected. (My Cubase SX3 upgrade has been buggy though) I owned a M-Audio Delta 1010 for 3 months and had 2 major failures due to driver conflicts during recording sessions with clients. The second failure of the Delta 1010 driver had me looking for a more stable solution but more flexible (and affordable) than all-in-one recording devices.

Sound:
I previously was using M-Audio Delta 1010 units combined with a Mackie mixer (with direct outs) to give me mic pre-amps. The Yamaha 01x definately has cleaner mic preamps than my Mackie mixer giving me more headroom and a better signal to start with.

Support:
I haven't had any problems with the unit but when I was buying I wanted one before any stores knew what I was talking about. So stores sales support was weak. I did however get a call from Yamaha head office sales department who answered all my questions (and more).

Overall:
This was an excellent investment with absolutely no regrets. I wish it had more XLR inputs but I have already easily expanded this with the mLAN capabilities. I love the way everything is connected by just daisy chaining a firewire to each device and I can rewire my entire studio on my computer screen and save the settings for instant access later on. I love the way it flawlessly and very quickly routes audio around as needed. I can take an mic inputs on the 01x and the i88x, and various instruments in the TRS inputs sent to my DAW software except one guitar signal which I can route from the input of the 01x, through the signal processors on my synth and then into the DAW software along with the raw guitar signal all in real-time and do this setup all without moving from my chair. Then click my mouse and my studio is wired up to send 8 audio signals and multiple midi channels to my synth and get 16 audio channels back to the software (and 01x for monitoring) so I can process many effects at once from my DAW but using my synth's hardware and sound quality rather than my softwares. I has limitless potential. I will only consider upgrading to a larger version of the 01x (more faders, maybe a larger LCD screen) and even then I'd likely keep the 01x and just set it up as a second studio control room.