should be just fine in the dry sand..i am assuming u are talking about salt water beaches. If that is the case you will have nothing but trbl if u venture into wet sand with this unit
The Umax is a great little machine. In the dry sand, it does pretty well. I don't use mine in the wet sand. Wet sand is the Sov GT's domain.
The Umax should serve you well. It is light as a feather and you can swing it all day. You can put the 3x18 coil on and cover a ton of real estate at a time. The battery seems to last forever.