Garrett ACE 250: Pros & Cons

Let’s talk about Garrett Ace 250. I once had a Garrett ACE 250 metal detector and I used it constantly for almost two years. I was very happy with it (as it was very decent for the entry-level metal detector), and replaced it later with Garrett AT Pro only because of the additional features that slightly enhance the metal detecting efficiency, and significantly increase comfort. However, Garrett ACE 250 was my reliable partner in many searching sessions, and brought me a bunch of cool finds.

Having Garrett ACE 250 by my side for two years, I had gathered enough information about the device to assess its advantages and disadvantages objectively. So, in case you were wondering about this stuff, welcome.

Pros

• Excellent price;
• User-friendly guide;
• The device is super easy to set up
• Balanced shaft
• Stable performance
• Powered by 4 AA batteries;

Cons

• Weak discrimination;
• No protection from noise
• Not enough frequency for coins and jewelry search;
• Mono coil;
• Not waterproof case;
• No VDI;
• No Ground Balance option;

Now let’s analyze in more detail:

Stability

Garrett ACE 250 metal detector is well-designed, however, it is not balanced well. If you fail to fix the coil, or control box, or whatever else detail, it becomes flimsy and hard to balance. It is pretty easy to accidentally pull the wire off the coil or the shaft as well.

In case the device fell on the ground or got wet, or was damaged in any other manner, it will definitely show unstable performance. You will get additional noise and uneven signal on heavily mineralized soils and on soils with chemical fertilizers.

Weak Discrimination

This drawback is met more often than not, and in case of Garrett ACE 250, it is often. You will be upset about it, so keep this in mind. Also, when digging you definitely want to have a better impression of what’s under the ground, and the VDI feature helps to do that, but Garrett ACE 250 does not have this feature (as well as 150 and 350 models). The updated ACE series of 200/300/400 is equipped with VDI.

Coil

The coil has two disadvantages: it is Mono, and it is not of the largest size.

Generally these are the main issues I have faced myself when used this machine in practice, and wanted to share the info about them. There are other drawbacks as well, of course, but they are also present in many other products. Moreover, they affect mostly the comfort and not the efficiency of search.

Michael Moore 2 years ago