Polyend Tracker changed everything about music-making for me. It became my holy grail, and I've completely switched to using it for production, and I don't feel like there is a way back, at least in the observable future. I've been using it for a year now, and 100% of tracks I've finished over the past year, I did on PT. It's not for everyone, but as soon as it clicks, if it clicks at all, tracking starts making so much sense that going back to piano roll feels like a cumbersome and pointless process. Total score - 5/5.
It takes time to learn it, but when muscle memory kicks in, everything falls into its place, and your ideas translate into music in seconds. I wish there were more shortcuts to navigate longer patterns, but other than that handling-wise it's great, so 5/5.
PT is built with a lot of limitations by design, so it's hard to compare with, let's say, Akai MPC, since they have very different philosophy. Compared to classic trackers, PT is loaded with features, both classic and modern ones. Wavetable synth, granular synth, loads of step effects, reverb (huge thanks to Émilie Gillet from Mutable) and delay sends, loads of sample editing effects, etc. For what PT is, I'd say it's definitely 5/5.
Again, keeping in mind what PT it, sound-wise it's good. It has its quirks, you have to battle gain staging at times, you have to accept all samples are mono only (probably the biggest bummer for me initially), mixing can be challenging, but when you know how to use it properly, it can sound great. Especially after additional master effects were added, such as Space, Bass Boost and a limiter. I'd still export stems sometimes to further mix them in a DAW, but mostly I'm working towards mixing 100% in PT, and only mastering the final mix in a DAW before uploading it. So, it takes time to learn, but it can sound good, so 5/5.
Hardware itself it great, except one big issue that a lot of users experience - excessive lubrication of a jogwheel. In order to fix it you have to unscrew it and wipe the shaft from time to time, removing the extra lube. If you don't do it, the jogwheel keeps spinning on the shaft with values not changing, or changing randomly. Easy fix, with a step by step guide on youtube, but it's annoying. Software-wise there are bugs, and while Polyend fixes them, they clearly don't have a huge staff, and their priorities were shifted towards developing new products, so bug fixing process is slow at best. With this being said, so far they were providing new features couple times a year, making it a much better product, as well as fixing some major bugs. Overall, you can definitely use PT as it is right now, but you have to work around some issues, which is also a bit annoying. So, quality-wise it's 4/5.
I'm very thankful for Polyend for making Tracker. Not only it changed my workflow completely, provided me with new ideas and inspired me, it introduced me to a wonderful community of PT users, that is the most friendly, helpful and fun community I've seen so far. I'm having tons of fun with PT, and I don't see myself switching to anything else as a center piece of my music-making process.