I've used this at the beach, the bay, mountains, back yard, and the creek. I like this metal detector.

- It's detected metal objects as far as 18 inches underground for me. It detects even very small objects.

-The bottom coil is easily adjustable with a simple touch of the foot when requiring a different angle for detecting different slopes on the fly.

-It lasts a very long time on just two 9v batteries.

-Detects metal object in the creek when hovering over several inches of water.

-At the beach, I adjusted the sensitivity to 4 or 5 bars to avoid constant mis-hits due to the saturation of the sand and possibly the salinity of the water. I haven't figured out yet if/how I can detect objects with the coil actually submerged in water.

-The pinpointer works great. Just takes a little practice. I highly suggest buying a separate small handheld pinpointer to go along with this metal detector (this will help you save a lot of time and find those smaller objects before giving up.) With this Ricomax, I (1) get the hit, (2) use the pintpointer function, then (3) pinpoint with my small handheld pinpointer.

-It's easy to use. Any beginner can figure it out after reading the directions.

-This metal detector has provided hours and hours of entertainment and excitement.

-I've detected with this in the pouring rain, by just fashioning a plastic bad around the top and pressing the buttons through the plastic bag.

I love this and use it literally every week. A great hobby. I'm glad after looking at lots of reviews that I picked this one. Not a bad price, and I imagine it has the same functionality as some of the higher priced ones.