Soundcraft Notepad-12FX

Look nice, small and lightweight. Maybe not the most robust but no problem for homestudio/rehearsal
Simple and minimalist (no power switch, no power indicator, no 48v switch, ..) But not a problem for me
Preamp clear, Neutral, Good gain, no breath, pop's or other
All linds of Mic / Inst are well supported (Sure S58, RodeNt1, Bass guitar, Digital Piano, ..)
Simple and effective effects
Real 2/2 USB (Directly recognizable by Ableton after Installation of PC drivers)
You can record two tracks simultaneously in your favorite DAW
Different routing options in order to assign Mixer Inputs to the two USB tracks
Also two separate output tracks from the DAW to the mixer

The only "weak" point i see, but you can deal with it:
You always have to play with two
Knobs "FX / AUX (blue)" and "Input Level (big red)" in order to adjust the good balance between level and effect on a channel.
Also in order to completely silent a channel, your have to turn both knobs to zero

But first impression is Simple and Efficient

Update to come

Pros:
- It's compact and cute with nice colors (hey thats important to some people).
- The controls are smooth and of good quality.
- All controls and inputs/outputs are on the top.
- 2-1 (mixer and audio interface) will save you some studio space and money.
- The signal routing for is good when used as an interface for input recording IMO. Signal to PC goes after trim but before EQ and volume knob, wheras signal to XLR stereo out goes after EQ and volume knob. As such you can have direct monitoring on the XLR stereo out separately from what goes into PC, per channel.
- The option to set the interface to either 4 separate channels, or 2 channels plus the whole mix is nice (channels 1-2 are always the two of possible four though, but thats fine).
- It sounds good and clean (but more on sound on the cons too).

Cons:
- The built in effects are not good. The reverb especially is unusable and a let down, at least for me. Thankfully there is an AUX to add your own send, but doing so will sacrifice 2 inputs of course.
- There are only XLR outputs (and a headphones one). I really wish there were also a pair of jack outputs too for the stereo mix (so that I could hook it up simoultaenously with a recorder without coming up with more complicated setups to do this).
- As an audio interface, it has 4 outs. 2 of them are the XRL outputs and the other 2 are the headphone outputs. Once again wish there were a pair of jacks for the 3/4 output (to use outboard gear for example). You can probably use the headphone out for this and my previous con though, but a pair of jacks would have made all this much simpler.
- Phantom power is always ON.

Bottom line:
It's a good quality piece of gear that apparently I only find it lacks a pair of jacks for output and a decent reverb. Maybe a firmware can fix the kinda bad effects since they are digital anyways, and as for the pair of jacks output it is what it is.

Excellent sound. It seems just right for my setup: currently a Volca Bass, Microfreak and Medusa plugged into mono channels, and Blofeld and Model:Samples in two stereo channels. It has one mono channel and one stereo (but RCA version) still available. I use the secondary headphone output as send effect (Ocean Machine effect pedal) which returns a stereo signal.

I just wish the onboard effects could be effective even when receiving an effect return. Also it would have been nice if all channels would be recorded separately over USB (it can do two mono channels, or the stereo mix).

Also, for a beginner without experience in mixing, I found it a bit obscure to fiddle with synth volume, input gain and the proper channel levels for my effect send pedal, which can crackle if the input is too loud. Most of the time I can resolve any issue quickly, though.

I suspect isolated brief drop-outs in the recorded audio were produced in my laptop (i7, 16 GB, Windows 10, Audacity) by background processes.