Podtrack P4

Not sure if this is the best forum for this, but I picked up a pretty cool piece of gear and wanted to let folks know about it as many may be interested, and offer a bit of a review. It isn't a smart home device, but it could be classified under gadgets, so there ya go. I have, for several years now, been using an Allen & Heath XB-14-2 broadcast console for my online radio station. My needs are not as complex as they once were, plus I've migrated a lot of my radio automation from a pc in my studio to the cloud, now just run my few shows I do on a laptop, and don't need this big broadcast board taking up so much room. Is it a great piece of gear? You bet! But I've been wanting to downsize for a while now.
The first thing that has blown me away with this Podtrack P4 is just how small it is, and all the things it packs in. I mean, I wanted to downsize, but wow, this thing could almost fit in a pocket.
So, the Podtrack P4 comes with 4 XLR jacks, which is the same amount as what my big board has. It also has 4 3.5 mm headphone jacks, which is good and bad. The good, that's actually one more than my big Broadcast console has. The bad, they are 3.5, or 1/8 inch, not the 1/4 inch on the console, so that means another trip in to adapter land for me. Would have preferred 1/4 jacks, but I understand why they did what they did. It helps keep the size down. In addition, it has another 1/8 inch jack (when I refer to 1/8, that is standard headphone size) and this one is to connect a smart phone or a regular office phone that has a 1/8 jack on it to connect to recording gear. When this is connected, mix minus is also done on this channel so the caller hears everything coming through the device, but does not hear him/herself. My big board has two telco channels, where you can connect certain equipment to bring in phone calls, and it handles the Mix Minus for you, and while the Podtrack goes about it in a much simpler way, it also offers much more flexibility, as you can hook this up to either a smart phone or a regular office phone, whereas unless you have some rather expensive equipment you can't use a smartphone on those telco channels on the big board, but on the Podtrack, it is all done with one cable. You could also purchase a separate bluetooth adapter for it, but I don't see much of a need. Next, it has two USB C ports, one just for powering the device and other for both power and data.
The device can be used as a stand alone recorder, though you would need to hook up at least one mic, or as a USB Audio interface.
It also has 4 buttons which can be assigned to play different sounds, so if you are using the device as a stand alone recorder, you can still put in your podcast intro music, or any other audio you may need.
So, what's the catch you ask? Well, there are a few things that could be dealbreakers for some, but aren't for me. First, if you use the channel for the phone, that is on channel 3, but you can't use both the phone and a mic on channel three. There is a selector switch that will let you use either or, but you can't use both. You can have both hooked up, but have to choose one or the other. Thankfully I am never in a situation where I need both a third microphone as well as a phone at the same time. Second, if you are using the Podtrack P4 as an audio interface, so connected to your computer, in the same way the phone can take away a microphone, so does the USB connection. To clarify, that's not a problem if you are just sending audio to the computer, so if you are just recording, you have use of all 4 xlr connections. However, if you are both sending and receiving audio from the computer, like I will be for the radio station, that pretty much leaves me not being able to use that 4th xlr connection for another microphone. Again not a deal breaker, because I only have 3 mics, and can still choose between mic number 3 or a phone caller. But, it's something to be aware of because if you are both using a phone, plus using the USB to both send and receive audio, that would limit you to only two microphones on channels 1 and 2. In the same way that channel 3 has a selector switch to choose between a microphone or a phone, Channel 4 has the same thing to choose between a mic or USB audio from the computer. Lastly, the only other down side I can think of is that the menus on the device are not accessible. So to assign your sound pads, you would need sighted help.
The device has 70 db of microphone gain, so that is enough to power just about any microphone, and each channel can have phantom power enabled if needed. It's rather nice these can be controlled for each channel. Also, each channel has a mute button.
This thing is seriously tiny, probably 1/12th the size of my big board. And for as small as it is, it packs a big punch, and only ran me $149 on Amazon. There is also a Podtrack P8, but I couldn't find a good price on that. On Amazon they were only wanting to sell it bundled with other products. But honestly, the P4 will do absolutely everything I would need. If anyone is interested or has questions, feel free to let me know, and I'll be happy to answer to the best of my ability.