@laxu I love that you did a comparison table! That’s totally something I do in my brain.
Here’s what I would wish for from each company:
Fractal (currently own Axe 3) - love the amp tones, effect quality, and power. Wish the user experience was closer to having an amp and pedals than programming rack gear. If they had hardware and UI like Quad Cortex it’d be perfect.
Helix (currently own HX Stomp but looking at getting a Helix Floor for 4cm effects with my amp) - love the overall experience and the effects quality, good blend of power and simplicity. Amps seem to be missing something tonally, not sure if they need a rewrite or next gen hardware. Would like something with the power of Helix and size of QC.
Boss (previously owned GT-1000 and curious about the GX-100 for 4cm) - love the idea of all the Boss effects and their own amp models with low latency. But tonally I don’t like the amps at all and the effects often sound cheesy. Also really don’t like how they don’t include all the effects of the 500 series or fixed blocks of the GT1k. Wish they would do an overhaul with a better UI and truly bring boss effects to this space.
Neural (currently own QC) - really good hardware that feels very modern, great amp tones, decent effects. They need to build out more effects to compete with others and then add a few more amp models. Highest potential of current hardware imo. Also the marketing team needs to just take a break. Let the products speak for themselves. Nano Cortex needs to include way more effects to be a standalone unit or drop price to $400 if it’s capture only.
Fender (don’t own but would like to try) - seems like a really cool UI and hardware package. Good variety of effects. I don’t trust the amp tones from what I’ve seen from afar and they seem to need more variety there as well. Lots of potential but seems like they need to iron out bugs and mature.
Tonex (had the One) - the bigger unit seems awesome but the little one was a massive pain to use. Because their software is horrendous. If they fixed the software these would be killer. One is a cool problem solver but the full unit has tons of potential in a bigger pedalboard. I’d be curious to try again if they fix the software.
UAFX - haven’t used but they look cool. I can’t bring myself to spend $400 on a fixed amp pedal. If they come out with a multi amp pedal that you can program I’d be a lot more curious but price would be hard to compete with others because then it creeps to full multi effects.