Minelab itself set the bravado bar sky high with its statement that it will "obsolete all single freq detectors" overnight, so its tough to see their hand picked testers having anything other than glowing praise so as not to be a buzzkill to the party line [and not get selected to test their next product].
Not saying any of them are dishonest, and we don't know if they are forthcoming and impartial or not. Put yourself in their positions, cannot be an easy spot to be genuinely fair and balanced, let the chips fall where they may. If they found a fault or something that glaringly didn't live up to the hype, I would think the procedure would be to consult Minelab about it to see if the fault can be remedied, and not to post about it on facebook, blogs or forums.
Maybe it is that praise worthy, maybe it has no faults or wants worth mentioning. I for one am not going to assume that.
Here's what I'm saying...
Those "hand-picked testers" don't NEED to risk being "buzz-kills." All they had to do, if they didn't think the machine was a good one, was KEEP THEIR MOUTHS SHUT, publicly -- which, in fact, is what Minelab asked them to do in the first place. See what I mean?
I was asked to test an electronic product once. It was given to me, and I was then put in touch with the engineer who designed it, and offered him a "consumer's perspective" on what worked well, and what didn't. He had an idea that he designed that would -- from his perspective -- meet customer needs, but he and the company then needed ACTUAL CUSTOMERS to verify whether it did, or did not, meet customer need, as they had intended it to.
In that particular case, it WAS a good product. A very good one, in fact. There were a few glitches, though; a few little things that didn't work quite as intended -- and I gave that feedback to the engineer; he then made some tweaks, and had me try it again. At that point, the glitches I noticed were ironed out, and I then felt that it was working as intended, and doing a very good job at it.
At that point, my job was done -- BUT, I did, of my own volition, let other folks know what I thought of the product, because I was impressed by it and felt that it met a need that wasn't being met by any other product, and wanted to let others know that.
BUT --
had I felt that it was kind of a "dud," i.e. it worked "properly," but really wasn't of much use or whatever, then after I did my job, and helped them work out the glitches, I simply would have kept my mouth shut, publicly. No one knew I had tested the product at that point, and no one NEEDED to know. I did my duty to the company, and I could then have just "kept quiet," and never said anything positive, publicly. And as far as I know, any of those guys testing the Equinox could have done just that -- helped the engineers to iron out the kinks, and then simply kept quiet, said nothing publicly, and went back to using the detectors they were using prior to the field testing. Right?
From that perspective, the fact that they feel compelled to give positive reports says something, in my opinion. And further, when I see the prior detectors owned by these field testers now up for sale in various venues, that to me is even further confirmation...
Anyway, again, just my two cents.
Steve
