So the thread is about Nokta Makro's SMF detector that is soon to be released hopefully and what it may or may not be like.
However, there are some things that need to be addressed here.
Kajunman, have a Snickers or something.........The people I know who are super happy with the ACE APEX are people who have upgraded from a heavier, less feature rich, with a tiny display, ACE model or who have moved laterally from either the AT Pro or the AT Gold for the same reasons. The ones that moved from another ACE model or from the AT Pro are delighted with just about everything on the APEX which is just better including those like you mentioned who now have an excellent saltwater beach detector too. The AT Gold folks are really happy too except for the loss of their really good AT Gold all metal mode.
Right off the top of my head, I personally know 11 people who have switched this way and couldn't be happier. I also personally know two great relic hunters, well known on Youtube who actually know what they are doing that are lukewarm on the APEX for anything other than surface to 8" relic hunting and can't wait for the SMF AT series upgrade.
I know several other people (not forum or YouTube people but people I know and trust personally) who wanted to support Garrett, but found out they had downgraded instead of upgrading from their other detector/s. These people who aren't happy are not dumb, and they don't deserve to be derided because they are not happy with how a roughly $500 detector that was thoroughly hyped is performing. $500 can get a person a really good, brand new detector form FTP and Nokta Makro is you shop carefully.
The original Quest Pro (2016) detector you keep referring to was made by Deteknix and was nothing earth shattering especially since it a repackaged Teknetics T2 internally and even externally. The T2 also is a control box on a stick/handle which is nothing new.........plenty of Whites, First Texas, Minelab (X-Terras and CTX) detectors have used that design way before Deteknix/Quest and XP's collapsible shaft system with control box at the top of the handle came out in 2009 and the CTX was 2012. So enough with how innovative Quest is or isn't.