This was purchased to find TWO gold rings we thought most likely lost in the house or (less likely) in the yard. It was used to search indoor floors and the trash we saved, that we spread outdoors. Before starting the real search, the detector was tested on jewelry on and below rugs, just to know what to expect. Key findings: 1. This metal detector cannot find platinum. 2. If the item is large (like a heavy gold bracelet lying on top of a rug) this detector will find it. 3. If the item is a gold ring lying beneath an area rug, the detector won't find it. 4. Inside a house you get some readings for pipes and things, but you can easily rule those out. 5. Detector will find pipes under cement outside. detector will also detect a dog food can lid on top of ground. Detector WILL NOT detect that same dog food can lid inside an otherwise empty paper bag! In other words, some things need to be completely uncovered to be detected. That makes the detector less useful of course. 6. Detector will find foil in trash and on bottles. 7. Detector will NOT find two gold rings wrapped in a paper towel lying on top of the ground! -fortunately I hand searched the paper towels also, and did not rely solely on detector, so found missing rings by hand search, hurray! Success NOT directly due to detector though. 8. Detector MUCH MORE sensitive to worthless foil than to gold! AFTER I found rings, as test I put the two gold rings on ground and detector only found the rings because I kept sweeping and sweeping, and even then beep was short and weak. Detector finds pipes under cement BETTER (with louder and longer beep)than gold in plain sight. 9. Knob settings on detector worthless. User manual just tells you to do trial and error to learn the sounds, so user manual also useless. I ended up using highest power setting and no trash eliminator setting to be able to find gold. At minimum user manual should say settings most likely to find the most commonly sought metals. Ie, to find silver set knobs this way; to find gold set knobs this way, etc. 10. Product would be better if you could turn knob to the specific metal you are looking for. 11. Suggested use and method to find rings in trash: Find spot outside on flat area where detector finds nothing (makes no sound). Place empty trash bag flat on that ground as ground cover. Spread some trash on top of the flat trash bag in a thin layer. Detector very weak so big piles won't work. go over the thin spread out layer of trash with detector. DONT RELY ON THE DETECTOR - ALSO CHECK EVERY PIECE OF PAPER/trash VISUALLY AND BY FEEL. As you check each piece of trash, throw it away so you don't waste time rechecking it. Keep on rechecking remaining trash with metal detector also, just in case. In our situation, detector found foil on yogurt lid but missed the two gold rings in a small piece of paper towel! 12. Detector requires two ALKALINE ONLY 9 volt batteries. I used Duracell Coppertop 9 volt which are alkaline. 13. Would I buy again? Our various tests on the detector showed the detector very weak on ring-sized amounts of precious metals, and that this detector won't find platinum at all. However, I think I searched my trash more thoroughly, intelligently & organized because I was trying to work with the metal detector, so that was an unintended plus. If I lost something again I'd pull it out and try it again. Not the world's best purchase and not the worst. Overall if I hadn't found the rings, I would have had a bit of piece of mind in knowing I had tried my best in buying and trying the detector, which is probably worth more than the $70 purchase price. Not a hearty thumbs up, but maybe better than nothing, as long as you don't rely solely on the detector.