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Minelab X-Terra 50

Price: $650
Avg. Score: 4 stars 4.14
Based on 21 reviews

Avg. Durability: 5 stars!5.00
Avg. Ease of use: 4 stars4.50
Maximum detection depth
Submit your review for Minelab X-Terra 50

Gold, Silver and Copper, It sure works for me

January 08, 2008
I have owned my X-50 for almost a year and I am very pleased with the unit.
You can?t beat the good points of the detector
1 Great quality
2 Light weight
3 Large display
4 Very adjustable, discriminate/notch what ever you want, one button back to all metal
5 Good battery life
6 Easy pinpoint, but don?t need it with DD coils
7 Adjustable volume both speaker and headphones
8 Change search coil to change frequency

The target ID allows you to cherry pick and dig just a little trash or push the limit and dig marginal signals on the deepest or trashiest target areas. Target ID numbers can be affected slightly with ground balance and choice of coil. (If you push the limit the extra holes will almost all be trash)

The X-50 has four tones for target ID, the stronger the signal the louder the tone.

Depth varies with the coil you are using and the ground conditions, I detect in an area where I have to set the ground balance near the end of the adjustment, I think this hurts the depth. Pennies and dimes will come in down to 8? but after 6? you need to be extra attentive, larger items of course will hit deeper, a zinc mason jar lid at 14?, and iron farm drag point 2?x 5? by a Œ? at 16?.

All my experience with coins has been in lawns so I don?t push for every last inch of depth and it was a very dry summer, I usually run at 16 out of 20 on the sensitivity, some places it will hold stable up to 20 for a while but then ?. I would rather set it and go not adjust every 10 minutes.

I have had the best luck with the 10.5? DD coil but the 5x10 DD high frequency is very sensitive to very small objects and nickels and I have dug pennies to 7? with it.

I have been side by side with other detectors and although I here a lot of talk about digging 10 and 12 inches for coins only the guys with top of the line Minelabs seem to dig deeper holes than I do, and they are still digging the same trash as I am.

I did a lot of research before buying the detector the funny part is I walked into a store to buy a Whites M6, it sounded like the machine for me, I have no doubt by the reviews it is just as good in performance maybe better than the X-50; but in the store the X-50 won me over with its weight, features and display advantages.

As with my other detectors the more I have used it the better it is working for me, I?m digging less trash and I have found silver, gold, and lots of copper. As for bad reviews I am not sure why, a quick judgment on most metal detectors is unfair.

December 9, 2007

Overall Rating 5 stars!

471

My minelab xterra 30 experiment

October 29, 2007
I have been buying and selling detectors for 25 years, and out of curiosity I purchased an xterra 30 off of ebay. I took it outside with little intuitive challenge, turned it on and dialed out the iron and set the sensitivity a little above median and searched my small front yard. I turned up a large washer, a toy matchbox car, a couple of bottle caps and a few pieces of garbage. I put the detector down and pulled out a cheap $8.00 yardsale bounty hunter with a simple goofy meter and went over the same strip and pulled out 5 late model coins in approx. 5 minutes as my girlfriend watching in excitement... I put the minelab back on ebay the very same night.....needless to say I was not impressed with the x-terra, but was amazed by that little dimestore bounty hunter!

Overall Rating 2 stars

1364

One of the best detectors on the market today. . .

May 06, 2007
and I have had pretty much all of them. This detector has excellent depth, very quick recovery time, and really locks on to a good target. If it repeats, it is a good target. If the numbers jump around, it is either junk, or if the signal is deep, it is a good target next to junk. This detector really sees good stuff next to junk. I have had all three Xterras, and I liked the 50 the best.

The pinpointing is the best I have used. There is no danger of nicking the target with your digger. Used you can get a XT50 for around $350 most of the time. Don't spend your money on lesser detector. Get a 50--you'll be glad you did.

Overall Rating 5 stars!

372

Minelab x terra 50

March 16, 2007
I purchsed a minelab x terra 50,and happens to be the worst purshase of a metal detector ever,slow recovery speed,very poor indeed,even with the 18.5 eliptical coil fitted made no real improvement on performance,which may i add the eliptical coil looks very tacky indeed.not the best machine minelab have produced by a long way.Tested against the laser trident 1 the xterra 50 comes a long way down the listing.

Overall Rating 1 star

2652

Come on minelab who are you fooling

July 16, 2006
I have owned many machines my latest purchase has been the x terra 50, I have never been so dissapointed with a purchase in all my life. This nasty cheap little machine has no punch and recovery speed is the worst I have used, place a coin next to a nail and try this test on your x terra, now try the same test with a Tesoro or whites classic 1. The x terra is to be avoided unless you are a complete novice, I tried the 70 last week in a dealers shop and it still has the unforgivable signal delay.
Minelab should spend more money on development instead of bull advertising in magazines.

Overall Rating 1 star

4447

GREAT LAND DETECTOR

July 09, 2006
I purchaed this machine several months ago, and in general I really like it. The positive points are that it is lightweight, very easy to operate, pinpoints well, and reads pretty accurately-especially on coins. The batteries seem to last a long time as well.

I live near a saltwater beach and that is where 99% of my detecting is done. While it works great in dry sand, it does not do well in wet sand, even when I turn the sensitivity way down it still falses a lot...ditto for trying to use it in shallow surf. So, I bought a Whites Surf Pro PI to use in the wet sand (which, by the way, performs very well in saltwater conditions, no falsing at all!), but I do plan to keep the Xterra for dry land/dry sand use.

My husband uses an Explorer II he finds more
jewelry and deeper targets than I did with the Xterra. Also, I recommed using the All Metal setting when possible because I tested the Xterra with some of my own jewlery and found that some of my thin gold bracelets/necklaces will only register when set to the All Metal mode.

So, in summary I give it a 4.5. The only thing I really did not like about it was its failure to perform well on wet saltwater sand, but I am sure I will continue to use it for dry sand/dry land hunting.

Overall Rating 4 stars

273

Minelab X-Terra 50

April 19, 2006
I have had the X-Terra 50 for about a week. As with any new machine there is a learning curve. I really like the 3 pre-programmed metal patterns. Lightweight and easy to use for long periods of time.

I am very impressed at the sizes and types of targets this unit will detect! The readout is very accurate. If it says the target is at 8 inches....it is at 8 inches.

I have logged about 20 hours with the X-Terra 50 and the 4 AA batteries show no sign of wear.

I would have to say that my favorite feature of the X-Terra 50 is the Pinpoint. It is dead-on accurate. Talk about a time saving feature!

All in all, I really like the Minelab X-Terra 50 and give it a rating of 5 Stars.

Overall Rating 5 stars!

312

X-Terra 50 Excellent Performance

February 13, 2006
As a novice to metal detecting, I read all the reviews and decided on the X-Terra 50. I wanted a good general purpose detector which could be used on any site, until I decide to specialise. The important point was that the detector would perform well enough to hold it's own at club meetings.
I received the small lightweight box containing all the bits and within 30 minutes I was out in the back garden putting the X-Terra 50 through it's paces.
I found the search coil to be very sensitive and quite capable of picking up targets several inches below the surface.
Today I took the detector for a trip to the seaside and despite all the dire warnings about ground balance and the need to reduce sensitivity on wet sand, I found several coins on a beach which had been very well searched since the end of last summer. Most finds were at about 4 inces below the surface, but a 50 pence coin was recovered from 10 inches down.
I found that provided a solid signal was received when sweeping, pinpointing was spot on with depths very accurately displayed. Aluminium (or aluminum) ring pulls and bottle tops were also found at considerable depths. I could have nulled them out, but detecting a drink can ring pull at over 6 inches is pretty good performance.
After a couple of hours, I could tell just by switching to pinpoint and checking how solid a lock I got on the target as to whether it was a coin or aluminium scrap.
Another detectorist using a mid market model found only a single one pence coin searching the same area as me. One up to the X-Terra 50 I think.
After three and a half hours, I returned to the car a little better off financially and with a wealth of experience gained.
The detector is very light and easy to handle. I won't say that my arm wasn't starting to ache, but at nearly 50 and not too fit, I could have gone on for another couple of hours if necessary.
So, read the manual, do check how to adjust ground balance and sensitivity, (just a couple of button pushes), and you have a detector that can definitely hold it's own against any other machine on the market.
The option of being able to purchase a smaller higher frequency search head, means that I can completely change the character of the X-Terra 50 without having to buy a new detector.
I have some reservations about the strength of the supplied plastic bolt to fix the search coil to the stem, but in practice it has proved to be quite adequate for the job so far. I imagine that other makes and models have similar methods of fixing the search coils.
An impressive machine which can be used by a total novice but with the performance to satisfy just about any metal detecting enthusiast,

Overall Rating 5 stars!

491

The things people forget to tell you ! !

December 26, 2005
The x-terra 50,a good detector " BUT " :-

1. The new mobile phone technology inside this detector is affected by your mobile phone. Evertime your phone searches for a signal, you hear it loud and clear in your earphones.

2. As every detectorist desires, lighter, deeper, more accurate and less iron. You all know this dream.
This machine is very light, it is deep but until NASA interpret the U.F.O technology they are said to be experimenting on, I don't think we have reach a the stage where iron isn't a problem (though I must say it is alot better than Fisher CZ at eliminating "coke")

3. Purchase a control box cover and store at room temperature (mine steamed up under the display screen).

4. The search coil is technologically advanced and light weight but could be more durable (I stood on mine by mistake on rough ground and cracked it).

5. Please can somebody design a nylon bolt that will hold the coil sturdy for more than a coulpe of days.

I'll leave the positive points of this machine to everybody else.
Although I've given my opinion of what could be improved on this detector, with determination and machine bonding (sharing your bed and all that) you will achieve good results with this detector.

GOOD LUCK

Overall Rating 3 stars

2820

THIS IS FUN (second try)

December 25, 2005
(As I made a few slips of the pen, I'll try this again... Hate to make faults !)
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THIS IS FUN !

The X-TERRA 50 is the best detector I've ever had. I own an XP G-MAXX (a "normal" detector with a very good recovery speed) and a Minelab Explorer II (an excellent super detector. If only he didn't drink batteries and HAD a recovery speed all together. And he might have been a "bit" lighter on the arm, as well !).

The X-TERRA 50 is rather light, almost as light as the XP. I can use it for 5-6 hours without having to stop working. Of course, I found A LOT : Euro coins, toy cars, small jewels and TONS of rubbish. But it was always great fun.

The 4 x 1,5V AA batteries last like 35-40 hours (this is a guess).

As far as I am concerned, the "reach" = impressive & perfect. It shouldn't go any deeper, for me. I find a coin (a cupper 50 Euro cent) maybe at 25 centimeters. Untill 2002 we had Belgian Franks ; now we use Euros. So, since we have plenty of old coins on our Belgian beaches the last thing I want to do is dig for all the left & useless clad.

I have been practicing with my new detector for at least 3 weeks (4, now, lol !), every single day, and for at least 3 hours a day (it is dark at 5.15 PM, here, now). The whole thing is perfect : light, long lasting batteries, ID, very good pinpointing, display. What élse do we need ?

So, if you want a very very good detector : the X-TERRA 50 should be your choice. Besides, prices are reasonable, I thought... Personally I think the X-TERRA 50 could make out a new standard in metal detecting...

BOB VALDEZ, Belgium

PS I ALWAYS use the ALL METAL PATTERN even if there is some or even a lot of rubbish.

Overall Rating 5 stars!

276

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