Review — Performance & Use

The Equinox 700 is Minelab’s mid‑tier Multi‑IQ machine that most UK detectorists will consider as a direct step up from older ‘Nox 600/800 era units without jumping to the flagship price brackets. In the field, its headline qualities are balance, ease of setup, and a signal language that’s familiar if you’ve used an Equinox before—only calmer and a touch more deliberate. Across pasture, old plough and typical arable permissions, the 700 settles quickly with a basic noise cancel and ground balance, then lets you creep the sensitivity until the audio starts to breathe. In short, it feels like the Equinox everyone already knows, but more grown up.

Ergonomics are a noticeable improvement during long UK days. The telescopic carbon shaft collapses quickly for hedgerow styles and gate hops; extended, the machine feels neutral with the stock 11" DD coil and doesn’t over‑load your elbow on undulating pasture. The handgrip vibration and improved backlight are small quality‑of‑life gains that show up when you’re running dusk‑till‑dark on winter stubble or low summer light under tree lines.

Performance on iron‑flecked pasture is where the 700 earns its keep. The audio breaks cleanly around shallow ferrous; more importantly, small non‑ferrous that’s tangled near iron will often give you that classic ‘blink’—a brief, higher‑tone hint you can coax out by changing sweep angle and slowing recovery. UK forum chatter around the 700 points to slightly steadier behaviour than older units when the ground is soggy, which matches our experience: the threshold and target IDs don’t dance as much as you push sensitivity. On medieval and Roman‑age sites that carry an iron ‘fog’, you can run Field profiles with a modest recovery speed and iron volume turned down just enough to hear the shape of the contamination without letting it dominate. That approach produces repeatable whisper highs on thin hammered and cut quarters that might vanish if you over‑speed the machine.

Depth on pasture is competitive for a mid‑tier multi‑frequency, and separation in modern junk feels improved mainly because of how tidy the audio gate is. The 11" coil covers ground efficiently on big arable spreads; on gnarlier home sites with dense iron or modern alloy scatter, a smaller accessory coil will be the better choice, but most UK retailers bundle the 700 with the stock 11" only. Stability near EMI is also gently better than previous generations around farms with electric fencing and near villages—noise cancel usually finds a usable channel without murdering sensitivity.

Beach performance isn’t the 700’s primary brief for this review (our bias is farmland/pasture/plough as per spec), but Multi‑IQ’s salt handling remains a selling point. Manufacturer literature emphasises 5 m submersibility and beach profiles, and several UK channels show it purring on damp sand once balanced. If wet sand is your main game you might still consider a specialist or the brand’s higher‑end machines, yet the 700 is perfectly serviceable for occasional seaside sessions and estuary edges.

Firmware support has mattered with Equinox models in the UK, because a lot of us buy one machine and ride it for years. In mid‑2024 UK dealers highlighted an update cycle covering the X‑Terra Pro and the Equinox 700/900 that addressed stability and pairing refinements. The practical outcome: pairing the ML85 headphones is straightforward, and dropouts are rare. That’s not glamorous, but it’s the sort of reliability you notice when your permissions are a 90‑minute drive and you don’t have time for Bluetooth faff.

Comparisons are inevitable. Against the 900 the 700 gives up a few niceties and ‘headroom’ options but retains the heart of the platform—Multi‑IQ, a responsive audio picture, and a modern chassis. Against rival mid‑tiers like Quest’s V80, UK testers commonly point to the 700’s more predictable ID behaviour on pocked pasture and its slightly calmer EMI manners, even if the rivals sometimes offer flashier screen real‑estate or spec‑sheet tricks. If you’re coming from a Nox 600/800 or a single‑frequency unit, the 700 is an easy on‑ramp: set a Field profile, noise cancel, ground balance, listen for the consistent repeaters and resist the urge to over‑filter the iron out of existence.

Practical UK tips that surfaced repeatedly during research: don’t chase absolute sensitivity on wet ground; instead aim for a clean, repeatable top‑edge tone at a few sweep angles and let the 700’s recovery speed do its work. Keep iron volume audible but low so you can ‘see’ the bed of ferrous without it masking the highs. On plough, work the coil flat and slow on the up‑cast ridges—those whispery edged targets are where the 700’s bias to tidy audio helps you make better dig calls. And when the field gets noisy from nearby power, anchor the machine with a conservative sensitivity bump and a fresh noise cancel rather than stacking discrimination.

Taken together, the Equinox 700 feels purpose‑built for the UK detectorist who wants modern Multi‑IQ performance with fewer knobs to fiddle and more trust in what the machine is telling them. It is not the most feature‑rich model in Minelab’s line, but it is a confident, balanced choice for mixed permissions that lean hard toward pasture and arable, and it travels happily to the beach when asked. In the hands of someone who listens for consistency rather than fireworks, it’s a steady coin‑and‑relic digger that rewards patience on sites with history.