When you are just starting out in a new hobby it is sometimes difficult to know where to begin. Do you just buy a cheap metal detector and see how you get on with it, or do you buy the best metal detector that is out there?
Well of course it does depend on your budget but if you buy an expensive one and never get a chance to use it, or do use it but just don’t get hooked on the hobby then it has probable been a waste of your money. On the other hand if you buy a cheap entry level machine that just isn’t very good then you might not find anything at all, and get bored with the hobby and move on to something else. So the answer is to seek advice from an experienced detectorist and set your budget somewhere in between the two.
There are numerous metal detectors out there particularly being sold on Amazon that are cheap and not very cheerful. The are often badly made and not very good at finding things so please don’t even go there. To get a good metal detector always go to a specialist metal detector retailer because they will only stock metal detectors that work and are of a high quality.
The top 10 metal detectors for beginners are all great machines and any one of them would make a great starter metal detector but some are just slightly better than others out there and there has to be a first place, a second place and so on. So how dis I come up with a method of ranking them? I run a spreadsheet in the background that collates all the data on every metal detector currently available. At the moment it rates 32 different metal detectors from all the best brands. It then awards points for 12 different factors that include price, weight, features, performance, build quality etc and then arranges them in order according to the points each machine gets. The results are sometimes surprising but as all machines are judged on exactly the same criteria the results are true and fair with no bias being given to any particular brand or model. This list of the best metal detectors for a beginners is the machines from that list that cost no more than £350 to buy.
So here we go, let’s take a closer look at some great entry level metal detectors that are suitable for a novice who is just starting out in the hobby. Here are my top 10 starter metal detectors, in reverse order.
The Top 10 Best Metal Detectors For Beginners
10 – Garrett Ace 150
The Garrett Ace 150 typically retails for around £170. It is definitely a sturdy well made detector but as the entry level machine in Garrett’s range it is a little bit basic. For me the tones are a bit raucous and annoying but there are plenty of people out there who use them and rate them. Like most entry level machines it only operates on a single frequency, but lots of users don’t have an issue with that. It doesn’t have wireless headphones either so you will either be using the loudspeaker and scaring away the wildlife, or constantly getting yourself tangled up in wires, unless you spend more to buy wireless headphones with a wireless dongle that plugs into the headphone socket, but that of course takes the price of your machine up higher.
9 – Garrett Ace 200i
The Garrett Ace 200i is almost identical in appearance to the 150 but most importantly adds a target id number on the display panel to help you to more accurately identify what your machine might be detecting and for the additional £20 on the price is worth having.
8 – Fisher F22
The Fisher F22 is an interesting novice metal detector, it is fairly light weighing in at just over 1kg, again it is a single frequency machine, this one runs at only 7.69kHz which is lower than most other single frequency detectors, but has plenty of features that make it a great starter metal detector with more to tinker with than maybe the two Garrett’s below it, and at around £250 it is a good price too.
7 – Nokta Simplex Lite
The Simplex Lite is the entry level machine in Nokta’s Simplex range and as such it is again on a single frequency machine but running at 15kHz, with 4 modes and a pinpoint mode. They have a reasonably good reputation for build quality, ease of use and capability.
6 – Nokta Simplex BT
The Nokta Makro Simplex BT is one of the newer machines from Turkish manufacturer Nokta. There is nothing at all wrong with it, it is a great machine but not quite as good as the 5 ahead of it in the list.
5 – Minelab Vanquish 340
For a metal detector that costs just £229 Minelab have crammed a lot into it. Most surprisingly it is a simultaneous multi frequency metal detector, which means that it has multiple frequencies and it uses all of them at the same time. Design wise, it has a similar look to the Garrett machines, but in red instead of yellow, but that apart it is in a different league and all though more basic that the others in the Vanquish range, it still is an amazing machine to start you off metal detecting
4 – Minelab Vanquish 440
The Vanquish 400 has a similar look to its baby brother, but has more of everything, so more levels of everything, just a 340 taken up a notch or two, but of course you are paying more for those extra settings and adjustments.
3 – Quest X10 Pro
The Quest X10 Pro is lightweight and waterproof and in many ways similar to the X5, in fact there are only a few minor differences between them. The X10 is £50 more, whether the small differences are worth it come down to your preferences
2 – Quest X5
Back to a single frequency metal detector but for only £169, it is a lot of machine for a beginner. It is weatherproof, rechargeable, has 3 search modes and 99 levels of sensitivity.
1 – Minelab X-Terra Pro
Minelab have created an amazing detector for beginners with the switchable frequency X-Terra Pro that has pretty every feature you would ever need from a metal detector. In fact you might not ever need to upgrade from this incredible machine. However, it is the most expensive machine on this list at around £329.00
