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That's the review I've been waiting for, thanks, so it's basically what the 35 should have been. Sounds really good in-fact, they have resolved the things that made me dislike the 35 and what's left is a really good pinpointer. With pinpointers hitting a wall too is seems like if you've got a good one of any of the big brands you're happy with there is little point experimenting with any others unless you're going from VLF to PI or vice versa. I'll give it a miss for now but it's good to hear it's now a good unit, and may get one to replace my 35 at some point as I'm unlikely to ever use it again.

Firmware isn’t a partial update, it erases the old software and installs the new, you can go to 2.0 from any version without doing prior updates.

That's very respectable results, especially with the coil limitations, well done XP.

Yep, I received my replacement in about 10 days, not bad from Turkey (Türkiye) They dropped it on DHL for me, can't get faster than that to the other side of the world. They offered me to pick the size of the replacement so I took the larger size. Perfect customer service, couldn't ask for more.

Amateur makes ‘gold find of the century’ in Norway A man out walking on “doctor’s orders” with a newly-bought metal detector has discovered a huge haul of gold by accident. A Norwegian out walking on doctors’ advice unearthed rare 6th-century gold jewellery using a newly bought metal detector, a discovery archaeologists said on Thursday was Norway’s “gold find of the century”. “At first I thought it was chocolate coins or Captain Sabertooth coins,” said 51-year-old Erlend Bore, referring to a fictional Norwegian pirate. “It was totally unreal.” The cache comprised nine Norwegian gold medallions and gold pearls that once formed an opulent necklace, as well as three gold rings. Amateur archaeologist Erlend Bore posing with a gold treasure photographed shortly after he found them with a newly-bought metal detector. (Photo by Anniken Celine Berger / various sources / AFP) / Norway OUT Archaeologists say the find is unique because of the design on the medallions -- a type of horse from Norse mythology. Bore, who dreamt of becoming an archaeologist as a child, made the discovery on a farmer’s land near Stavanger in August after he bought a metal detector on his doctors’ recommendations to get more exercise. He had been out searching and was about to head home for the day when the device suddenly began beeping on a hillside. He called archaeologists, who took over the search. Mr Bore found these coin-like gold pendants. (Photo by Erlend BORE / NTB / AFP) The treasure consists of nine gold medallions and pearls that once formed a luxurious necklace, as well as three gold rings. (Photo by Anniken Celine Berger / various sources / AFP) The jewels, which weigh a little more than 100 grammes, were discovered to date from around 500 AD. “It’s the gold find of the century in Norway,” said Ole Madsen, the head of the University of Stavanger’s Museum of Archaeology. “To find that much gold all at once is extremely unusual.” The most recent comparable find in Norway dates back to the 19th century. A reconstruction of the necklace Mr Bore found (Photo AFP) “Given the location of the discovery and what we know from other similar finds, this is probably a matter of either hidden valuables or an offering to the gods during dramatic times,” professor Hakon Reiersen said. In line with Norwegian law, both Bore and the landowner will receive a reward although the sum has not yet been determined. Amateur makes ‘gold find of the century’ in Norway | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

If I thought it was vaible I'd be there in a heartbeat, seeing I'm next door, already have a vehicle there and my wife goes a couple of times a year to visit family and I stay home as I left the place for a reason, can't stand the heat 🙂 and love my snow. For a shortish trip with little local knowledge, I can't see it being viable without some local help. I do regret not even knowing the detecting for gold hobby existed when I lived there, a large part of the 32 years I was there were wasted years I could have been out swinging during the glory days. I'll give it a go at some point but it's more than likely for the adventure than a successful gold trip, my expectations will be low. Now, beach detecting I can see very viable, some of the QLD and NSW beaches are so packed with people there is bound to be good finds, and with such a beach culture chances a pretty high of some good finds, it's a shame the younger crowd don't tend to wear real jewellery these days as much so the bulk of the finds would likely be junkers. I think I'd end up enjoying looking for jewellery on an Australian trip more so than gold which is why I've prepared myself with a pulse dive and waterproof detector/headphones ready for a pending future trip. At least the water keeps me away from the heat. somewhat 🙂

@Jeff McClendon LOOK!!!! It might be time I get a Deus 2 after all, please let me know how it goes. Other Improvements introduced with V2.0: Gold field program: Increased Sensitivity to small targets (low conductors). Equalizer now functions with the Bone Conduction headphones.

I do believe the 35 runs at 13.5kHz, whereas most pinpointerrs run in the 12lHz range, even the Whites TRX and Sphinx 03 run at 12kHz and they truly are the most sensitive pinpointers. Your TRX should be way more sensitive to small targets than your Pro-Find 35, and your XP-Mi6 should be similar to it. It's great you had a reliable one, it gives hope they can do it with the 40 as I really think if they have slightly boosted its sensitivity and made it better quality/more reliable and fixed its stability issues it will be a good pinpointer. I'm certainly not against buying one, i just don't want to be the Guinea pig on this one, I'll let someone else take the stress, anguish and suffering of buying a lemon to then do their report on it, rather than believe the detect-spurts videos. I want real user results for evidence.

Then.... and now

Look forward to seeing your video. Great you were able to get one, hopefully that means the flow of them isn't too far off.

Yes, My GPX 5000 was an Ex-hire unit from an African dealer. These photos of it were taken by him before sending it to NZ. Note how the African's don't care about settings, the dealer sets them up for them to use and marks out the switch positions in case they bump them, I guess. They have a pretty rough life, I just can't see a GPX 6000 standing up to the heavy duty use the African prospectors put onto a detector. I had mine set to Minelab for a refurbish and new housing, as you can see by its pictures above it wasn't in good condition. It came out nice after Minelab NZ got their hands onto it for a check and refrub.

The detectors that weed out the last remaining dwindling gold in the ground also face the problem of less customers, the better detectors get in an odd way the less customers are available to sell them to. That's what's happened with Africa.... the easy good gold is gone or going fast, the GPX 4500 and 5000 were extremely popular there, I even own an ex-African GPX 5000, I can only dream of the gold that 5000's found, more so than I'll ever find in my lifetime. The 7000 from what I've been informed wasn't as popular but still a somewhat common detector to see, I would guess due to price or due to the value they see for the price over the 4500 for example, if most of the gold they care about can be found with a 4500 for a much cheaper price why buy a 7000. The 6000 comes out to specifically target that market and falls flat on its face in Africa, it didn't take off like hoped as investor reports have often stated sales are not as good as hoped for the 6000 and now the investor reports are saying we need to move off the African market and focus on expanding into other markets. This can't be due to conflict and so on in parts of Africa, it's a big place with many countries that are heavy gold producers and not all are problematic yet the African sales died. The African market has its problems outside of prospecting that has caused some sales issues but the main reason I think is these people need to make a living off the gold they find, they don't get paid properly for the gold they do find so they need to find even more to make it worthwhile, the bigger easier bits are gone and they don't want to scratch around like chickens plucking out a 0.03 of a gram piece so once the easier gold the 5000 can find is gone so is the gold rush. The Africans didn't get paid per gram the prices we can get if we sell gold, they got a pittance for it, they often had commission to the local rogues that controlled the area too, they sold their gold illegally to middle men that sneaked it out of the country. If they tried to sell it the legal way it's not worth being a small-scale miner, so they went black market but still the price per ounce was small so they had to find a lot of gold to make it worthwhile. Here is a older story on it that's worth reading Gold worth billions is smuggled out of Africa - new analysis (reuters.com) The depth on the bigger deeper gold I believe the 4500 still beats the 6000, it helps with its large range of coils but it can support large coils so depth on big gold is still the 4500 and I'm sure the Africans worked that out quick smart. The funny thing about the 6000 is they intended it to be the good seller in Africa, it turns out its the better seller to other places where the people are trying to scratch out the remaining gold the other detectors missed by its ability to find very small and odd gold that was missed by previous models for various reasons and you see that with people selling the 7000 which is the top of the range to I guess you could say downgrade to the 6000 to find these smaller bits of gold that are left. For us in countries outside of Africa it's been a good success story, more so than Africa but we are a smaller group of people so the revenue wasn't as hoped.

I think people have been scared off by the 35, and rightly so, I still often wake up in sweats after nightmares in the middle of the night over my experience with it. Combine that with Minelab's recent history of poor quality and it doesn't seem a good option. Hopefully someone has marbles made out of titanium and is willing to give one a shot, as on paper and if true they've fixed the various issues the 35 had then it would be a good pinpointer. They need to do a trade in program for the 35 owners, if they gave me a 25% discount if I handed in my 35, I'd take it. (I'm shooting for the stars there, they could drive me down to 5%) Then they could put all the gathered up 35's in a big pile and burn them and put the video on YouTube, it would go viral, their most watched video.

PLTFNDR, well that's what I'd have as I'm an expert pellet finder.

Just like when you get faulty coils keep your skid plates and send it in without, the new one comes bagged with a new skid plate so at least you can get some compensation for having faulty stuff all the time.

Fingers crossed they've resolved these problems on the Manticore, I'd be surprised if they have but hopefully it's the case. They're the company that puts 100% effort into trying to give the best performance and a generous 35% effort into giving a quality product letting known issues keep going by never even attempting to fix them up on later builds. If my Nox 800 did die I'd be replacing it for sure with another 800 as it's a truly great detector and one of my absolute favourites. I couldn't let it go but I wouldn't be replacing it with a 900, to me other than the vastly improved (it seems) build quality the detector itself for my needs would be a downgrade with its poor target ID's by comparison to the 800. If I was a serious water hunter though the 700 or even possibly more likely the X-terra Pro would be worth consideration for in water use and I'd be still using the 800 on land.

I bet if they let Nel make coils for it prior to the war good coils would be released quickly in every shape and size Nel make, Minelab hold such low importance in coils it really annoys the crap out of me. I've waited so long to buy Manticore coils I've basically given up on the detector at the moment and never use it. The two coils I need don't exist, the one I don't want came on it and I'm basing that off my Equinox, I never use my 11", only the 6" and 15x12" get used out of the Minelab coils. People that are good at making coils appear to be able to make new sizes and shapes very quickly. Also a little note to Minelab, release the 17x13" coil for the Manticore too, don't worry about it cutting into CTX sales, everyone who wants one has one already and the Manticore will never be a CTX replacement.

I think the M9 is a marketing mistake by the same people that put a Gold Bug Pro as the VLF image for the Minelab investor report. M8 8"x5.5", M11, stock coil and M15 15x12" coil, that's all we will see from Minelab I'm confident with that, what matters next is which sizes Coiltek intend to do, and they've been all quiet on it for now. A 6 by 3 would be my dream coil and if they did that then I'd say the Manticore is better than the Nox 800 for gold, until then I doubt the M8 is going to cut it to be "better" than the 800, especially on tiny gold. With the Nox having the 6", 10x5", 11" and 15x12" It seems like the nugget winner to me. I have the M8 coil for my Vanquish, the flat nose on it takes away a lot of the elliptical advantage. This is the 10x5" Nox Coiltek back-to-back with the ML 6", you can see the 10x5's advantage in rocky areas by this photo especially with its hot nose and the 6" being hot in the middle.

I'm sure at some point you will get your wish Jeff, with technology hitting a wall all that's left now is various paint jobs over the years. 🙂 We will see lots of different design detectors with similar guts adjusted in small ways to suit the model. At least with Minelab they'll embrace new wireless technology (and limit it too) and other beneficial features like modern screen and battery technology to improve detectors in other ways.

I like the take a list and contact you when they're in stock style in order of list position. No money down needed as the queue should be ample to cater for anyone that pulls out with the limited stock they seem to supply. That's how they do it here.

Am I understanding correctly Minelab have said for dealers not to take pre-orders, in other words take people's money with no product to give? That's great news they're taking that stance. The dealers doing it were giving Minelab a bad name when they were late to deliver product.

A fine line between testing and marketing from what I've seen, especially with the Youtubers, one in the same.

That was my thoughts behind it, why bring a new product to market with all that investment in R&D and get less of a return due to a lagging market with much of the world in financial strife and a dead African market, they'll just keep it sitting there waiting until the time is right, until then they are already the top dog so will get a bulk of the sales anyway regardless of a new model. I still don't see what they can do to a GPZ except lighten it up and modernize its wireless etc. If they can give difficult people normal performance that'd be a dramatic and welcome change but won't benefit me all that much. I guess they'll finally allow a small coil on it as the 6000's released now and had its sales flurry.

Well, I sort of agree except as a beginner accurate Target ID's are a great asset and help keep you interested and the Xterra appears to lack them much like all the new release Minelab VLF's, whereas the Vanquish at least for me is rock solid, as I've demonstrated before on videos it's more stable than the Equinox 800 even on quite deep coins. I guess my views are of someone in mild soils, and Chase and Jeff both being in hotter soils opinions will always be different.

This isn't a sponsored by dealers site, so you can name dealers no problems, that's one of the great things about it, no bias towards any company or dealer when there is no associations with any.