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My max arrived last Friday and overall had good prints out of box. I checked the board and it's a 4.2.2 also. So yes it's a4988 on z/e and tmc 2208 I think on xy. Not particularly noisy though.
As for firmware, th3d already has a unified firmware up on his site. You'll have to complie yourself though depending on the board you have. Tim said in his live stream last week he had received both .2 and .7 boards on this model. I used his 4.2.2 with no issues, works very well and a few extra features over stock. Fine for me as the only upgrade I plan on is replacing the pfte with capricorn which I did before I even started. I might look at skr e3 on this as I had excellent results on an old cr10 mini with that.
To be honest it's a really good printer. I think the qa has improved a lot since I bought my mini in mid 2018. It's kind of a hybrid between cr10 and ender but honestly, it's pretty good, you're looking at a better build plate, board and two fans, filament sensor and easy support for bl touch. All of these are a challenge for cr10. My only issue with creality is lack of upgrade paths for existing users. I bought a Prusa at the same time and all of their upgrades still apply. It would be nice to see upgrade lights for legacy users. That said I paid 245 Euro for the every max... Bringing the mini to same bed and similar board would have cost me half that plus effort to drill holes for the aluminium profile. A dual z upgrade path
would be REALLY nice for this model.