Welcome bobby84.
Before I make any recommendations let me ask a few questions.
What are you willing to spend?
Detector prices vary from around $200-$1200. My suggestion is to get the best your budget will afford. All too often people will purchase a really cheap detector, just to see if they like detecting, and then either wish they had bought a better one in the first place or find nothing at all.
What will be your primary hunting?
A detector good for coin hunting may not be good for prospecting or relic hunting. Luckily Kansas soil doesn't have that big of a problem with minerals like some other areas, but if you plan to take it around the country you need one that can deal with different soil conditions.
Generally you will pay more for more features/options. Target ID and Tone ID allow you to see and or hear different metals. For example gold will produce a low tone(tone ID) and a low ID(target ID) making it easier to tell junk from gold. Thats the theory but in practice you find gold jewelry, since in varies in size and shape, can read or sound just like junk. Thats not to say these features are worthless only that you shouldn't rely on them.
The frequency a detector operates at has a big influence on what it works best for. Lower frequencies(3khz-6khz) are great for penetrating the ground(depth) and respond best to targets in the upper range such as silver and copper. Higher frequencies(10khz-50khz) are very sensitive to the lower range such as gold. Thats why you find most prospecting detectors operate at higher frequencies. Some high-end detectors combine the best of both worlds and offer multiple frequencies. For example my Whites DFX can transmit, receive and process both 3khz and 15khz frequencies at the same time.
The ability to deal with ground minerals means a detector can ignore ground minerals such as iron and magnetite, which can give false signals, to find good targets others may mis. This is also called Ground Balance. Being able to properly ground balance a detector is essential for successful hunting. You've got to be careful when a detector manufacture advertises a detectors ground balance(also known as GB) feature. They can be misleading.
Typically you have 3 types of ground balancing available. Manual(best) and "Automatic" which is where things get misled. Manual of course is just that. You can adjust the GB manually for better performance in highly mineralized conditions. True Automatic Ground Balance means a detector will sample the ground for changes in ground conditions and make adjustments as necessary. Many manufactures claim to have automatic ground balance but they simply mean you can't adjust it because its set static at the factory. In most cases its fine but in highly mineralized ground you have no way to adjust for the conditions and a loss in depth/performance is the results.
Typically you pay more for more features. What features you need or want depends a lot on what and where you plan to hunt. Obviously more features can make a detector less user friendly or complicated as well as heavy. For a great all around starter detector I recommend the Garrett ACE250. At about $212 it is easy to use, light and very featured. It has target ID as well as Tone ID and a wide-scan coil so each swing covers a bigger area.
The bad points are it doesn't do well in wet salty sand(beaches) and pinpointing can be tricky due to the wide-scan coil. All in all though it is a great detector for the price.
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