It's small, and designed for field use, which means there's some compromises that have to be made just in order to fit so much on such a small device.
Especially in terms of powering solutions, I am not a fan of AA batteries, and I'm not going to pay the asking price for a plastic sled to mount Sony batteries either.
You get very good operation times with just about any USB charge pack however, in my experience.
A 5V 1Amp pack is only able to power 2 preamps at the time, that's still plenty for my needs in most situations as I can still use the other inputs for line-in for instruments, etc.
My 10400mAh USB charge pack which delivers 2.1A for tablets etc. fully powers this for hours, should I need more microphones, and you get much larger capacity packs.
My only concern then is the USB-C prone to wear and tear, but it's somewhat protected by the XLR plugs going into channel 1-2, so I'm not too concerned powering it like this for now, but I'll want to invest in a bag with internal frame to protect it better and I'll fix a cable to the frame so it doesn't accidentally pull on the socket of the unit.
Overall I think they have done a great job in terms of fitting so much versatility and features into such a small device, and the quality is overall superb.
It's really well built, sounds crystal clear, very nice preamps.
Operation is intuitive and well thought through, the touch screen is very snappy. Very flexible in terms of various use scenarios. It's clear that Sound Devices have put a lot of thought into this.
Very happy with it, I'll be carrying it everywhere.
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