Needing advice on what to get in a new or second hand detector

Greetings ppl of the  world. My mate that gave me my detector is in the market for a new one himself and is needing some advice on what would be the best buy for his money, so I said I would ask you lot as you all seem to know what you are talking about.   
His budget is up to $800 AU and he wants to be able to detect both the beach and dry ground so he needs something with a discriminator that filters out salt for beach finds and hopefully something with good depth, light weight and versatile. What do you suggest?
He travels around a bit and does get into areas that have had old gold mining as well as loving coin hunting. As I have no idea  : being new to all this, I figure that asking you people that have been at it for ages and know most of the machines out there, he would have the best chance of getting the best detector he can buy for the money he can afford to spend on the hobby. The advantage for me is that he is living with me at the moment so anything he gets, I'll get to play with too, at least for a while till he moves on again. So I am in a win win situation, He will get a great detector and I get to use it . Thanks for any info you ofer, Z.
Ps, he is happy to buy a good second hand detector or a new one, depending on what is available or if any of you lot have one that you are selling or something on Ebay that you lot suggest. He says new is good for him too.

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The one he gasve me is a cheap chinese import he bought off ebay and has since realised that buying cheap imports is not the way to go even though I have found a few bits and peices. His old detector that he only used a few times was a Whites Coinmaster, 30 years old and isn't working prperly, can't grounnd balance it and only works partially on one setting, will pick up metal doing the air test but without the ground balancing is not that good for the field. This said, he is  a newbie to detecting too so was interested in some advice so he can make up his mind which way to go and what to get and that is the reason for this post. As you people have been doing this longer and have all tested loads of different detectors, he was hoping for some direction in what is a good buy, not being told what to go out and get.
Has anyone tried out the new At Gold by Garrett, from memory, that would be in his price range though I don't know if they are any good on the beach.

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ace250 bout $212.00 out the door plus tax

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   I have gotten good deals on used metal detectors, but your always taking a chance, for the 800 dollars you can buy a new
one with a warranty, and get a real good one, I think most all of the major brand names make pretty good detectors, It is like
the one fella said, what are your priorities, If your thinking about using it at the beach, and most of your hunting is going to be
there you might want a water proof type, in case you want to take it into the surf. I have a white Mxt paid $750 new, it came
with an extra coil, on a spacial, It is a Miltie detector, I have 4 coils total with over a thousand dollars invested. sometimes
you can get something used that has all the extras, if you go that route you want to make sure you can try it out, to make sure
it works right.   I researched for a long time before I bought another detector, the one I have did everything I wanted, never
used it at the beach, some like it some don't It has a great ground balance and salt feature, for me it is great, for you it may not be. I live in the mountain I look for gold, coins and re licks high mineral ground. check out all the brands, features they have
when you find what your looking for then read the forums, and see how others like them, all the brandnames will till you they are
the best, the truth is they are all pretty good, some do better in certain areas of detecting.  read the forums and see how there
customer like them, It might take you a while to find one but at least you will get what you want for what you want to use it for. I hope I was some help.

Posted on: October 07, 2011, 09:58:32 AM

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     I had to add something, If he is new he might want to start out in the two or three hundred dollar range and buy a
turn on and go detector, and see how he likes detecting, there are a lot of good entry level detectors, if he likes it
 he can keep it and use it for a back up or sell it later and get him a more expensive one. just a thought

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