The New Quest Xpointer Max

[F350Platinum]

8 hours ago, mh9162013 said:

Just to clarify, any old USB-C charging cable will work, but third party "fast charging" USB-C cables won't work?

That is correct. They supply a cable that works. I happen to have two Power Delivery fast charging USB-C power supplies, and neither of them will charge the Xpointer. I had to plug their supplied cable into a 2A cell phone charger.

[F350Platinum]

10 hours ago, mh9162013 said:

Also, how does it "closing range" or ratcheting compare with the Garrett Carrot?

Quick answer for you here, I had a few minutes this morning.

I don't know about salt water yet, but I tested ratcheting (re-tune) side by side with the Carrot, and it's identical in an air test. That doesn't mean you can skip out to the beach just yet 😀 the Xpointer seems to have about an inch to two inches distance from target detection advantage thus far. (Boost setting). I wonder why they bothered with "Boost", it's like "Turbo" on old computers. 🤣

Another thing I'm not so thrilled about is the holster. If you use the supplied tip protector, the pointer will snag when you pull it out, and possibly knock the protector off. That's gonna have to be addressed. The holster is heavy duty like the Garrett holster but it doesn't have as aggressive a snap either. The good news here is that you can use the Garrett holster if you have one 😀

[JCR]

Can anyone explain how well the discrimination works?

[mh9162013]

3 hours ago, F350Platinum said:

I wonder why they bothered with "Boost",

My guess is that the boost setting might cause it to false more often. So by giving it a "boost" setting, people know it's not a setting they can rely on for most hunting conditions. This means less complaining from the customer when it falses.

[CPT_GhostLight]

6 minutes ago, mh9162013 said:

My guess is that the boost setting might cause it to false more often. So by giving it a "boost" setting, people know it's not a setting they can rely on for most hunting conditions. This means less complaining from the customer when it falses.

The boost mode probably drains the battery faster too. 

[CPT_GhostLight]

14 hours ago, F350Platinum said:

I got it mostly to "Take one for the team". The discrimination feature really intrigues me, especially for multiple targets in a hole. It will save time in some instances, and get me on to the next dig quicker. Seems to work well. I'll probably do a separate write up on it after some field trials. 👍 so far so good.

Thanks for that, F350P, I look forward to your full review.

[schoolofhardNox]

14 hours ago, F350Platinum said:

Just got my hands on one of these today. First impressions are that it has good build feel but time will tell. I like/don't like the built in battery, would rather have an external plug to the USB C connector, and really wish they set it up for fast charging. It's 5v, and you can't just use any charging cable, you have to use theirs. 😵

I like that you can turn the flashlight off to save battery, and the re-tune seems to be as good as Garrett, but we will see in brackish and salt water.

It's not louder than the Garrett Propointer AT. It does seem to have about an inch or more "reach" than the Propointer in air tests, doesn't interfere with the Equinox unless you are in 10kHz single frequency (it's 9.5kHz) and even then it isn't too bad. You have to get it close to the control box, something that shouldn't happen often.

I got it mostly to "Take one for the team". The discrimination feature really intrigues me, especially for multiple targets in a hole. It will save time in some instances, and get me on to the next dig quicker. Seems to work well. I'll probably do a separate write up on it after some field trials. 👍 so far so good.

It will be interesting on how it behaves in the brackish and salt water tests. Water in the wet sand holes at the beach is where most pin pointers fail. You have to re-tune them as the moisture lever rises.  Tiny target test will be interesting as well.  Thanks for taking one for the team 😲.....😄

[F350Platinum]

4 hours ago, JCR said:

Can anyone explain how well the discrimination works?

It lights one led (red) if it's ferrous, and issues a lower tone. Non ferrous lights up a green led, and has a higher tone. It works pretty good. I dug a small buckle fragment yesterday that was mildly magnetic and it identified it correctly with red and low. It hits hard on totally ferrous metals. It's a two tone discriminator. Pretty cool.

[F350Platinum]

2 hours ago, schoolofhardNox said:

It will be interesting on how it behaves in the brackish and salt water tests. Water in the wet sand holes at the beach is where most pin pointers fail. You have to re-tune them as the moisture lever rises.  Tiny target test will be interesting as well.  Thanks for taking one for the team 😲.....😄

Yeah, it's tough when you have to buy something to review it 🙄 I like the Propointer AT, but knowing which of the targets I'm after seemed too good to be true. I apologize to Cipher for hijacking.🏴‍☠️ 

I should have kept that lead pellet I dug with the Equinox yesterday... 🤔

[PhaseTech]

I haven't used one in the salt yet, but I'm assuming it won't be as good as the Xpointer Pro, as the Pro is Pulse Induction.