"The best beacon out there is the one you know how to use." That's the first thing many ski patrollers, guides, or avy instructors will tell you. I tried the Tracker, the Pieps, the M2, and the Patroller when learning how to use transceivers. I found the combo Analog/Digital search feature of the Patroller to be the most intuitive for me (you don't have to adjust volume like the M2). The Analog search gives you quite a bit more range than a straight up Digital transceiver. It'd be nice if it switched to Digital a little further out, as it tends to switch at 20m most of the time. I've found the Patroller doesn't have the digital delay during the pinpoint search that the Tracker and Pieps have. If I'm trying to find someone, I don't want to wait for a digital reset. The Patroller's battery life is pretty good. It's basic, just the transceiver and a body belt with no annoying little cases to fumble with. Also, a big plus is that the transceiver turns on when you put it on. There's not a switch or a slider to forget about. The switch between transmit and receive is also very solid and easy to use. Sure, on paper, some other beacons sound better, but it's mainly the user that will affect search times and results. Get out there and practice with whatever transceiver you choose.

If you want a simple user interface, value a long range, and are comfortable with analog-only and then distance-only searching skills for a significant portion of the secondary search phase, yet still want a directional beacon (for a portion of the secondary search phase), then this is a beacon for you — and indeed, probably the only beacon that meets your criteria.
My full review is available here:
http://www.wildsnow.com/1577/ortovox-patroller-x1-review/

Although it claims to be a three antenna digital beacon, it seems Ortovox has stripped the best parts of the technology out. First, it switches to fully digital much too late, when you're already within 15m. It would speed up the search greatly if the directional arrows activated as soon as possible to vector directly to the buried beacon. Second, the third antenna is supposed to allow the beacon to resolve spikes, which can make it appear buried beacon is up to two meters away. However, the Patroller was completely unable to resolve spikes. For the money, I think the proven Tracker DTS is a much better choice.

The Ortovox Partoller Beacon is really easy to handle and very simple. Compared to the Mammut Pulse Beacon however, it is a lot slower in responding to changes of direction.

Its easy to use , comfortable to wear I use mine while snowmobiling and highly recommend it !!