Rating: 
Summary: Great product, great value
Review: After looking for a small digital camera for family gatherings, vacations, and general candid photo ops, I came across a review in the Wall Street Journal dated 2/18 rating four new small digital cameras hitting the market in the next few months. I was amazed that they picked a Konica Minolta over the others, including the new Sony DSC-T1, which retails for $549.00.
I've had the camera for a few days and it so user friendly that my wife is no longer intimidated by digital photography. It is incredibly small yet I had no trouble holding it comfortably and was able to keep still while shooting.
I have a Nikon Coolpix 950 which I doubt I'll use again.
Also, don't be misled by megapixels: 3.2 is plenty for printing, even 8x10" photos. Look for more pixels only if you will be cropping large sections of the photo and then printing large copies. The only down side is the 16MB SD card provided. On the 'fine' setting, only 9 photos fit on the card. Order at least a 256MB which holds approx. 154 photos.
Last, but certainly not least, is photo quality. It is as good or better than larger, more expensive digital cameras I've used. Red-eye reduction deserves special mention as working well. Overall, a great package at an unbeatable price.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Product
Review: All:
I have had this camera for a week and really like it.PROS: Everything the ads say are true. Great pics.
Fast startup and snap. Great for people who dont want
to mess with lot of manual settings, although you can do
that too. CONS: Have to think hard for these, but the lens is in a spot that you have to be careful not to cover with your finger when snapping a pic. Also, dont buy the Minolta camera case that you can get to fit the camera. It is a poorly designed case.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Camera
Review: All: I have had this camera for a week and really like it. PROS: Everything the ads say are true. Great pics.
Fast startup and snap. Great for people who dont want
to mess with lot of manual settings, although you can do
that too. CONS: Have to think hard for these, but the lens is in a spot that you have to be careful not to cover with your finger when snapping a pic. Also, dont buy the Minolta camera case that you can get to fit the camera. It is a poorly designed case.
Rating: 
Summary: What a disappointment!
Review: Areas of high contrast have a conspicuous and distracting white (and sometimes blue) stripe, so I'm returning my camera. As a test, I took comparable pictures with my old Sony U-10, and what a difference! The Sony pictures are free of "errors" and are much sharper as well. Think I'll stick with Sony; apparently, you really do get what you pay for. The Dimage XG is small and is loaded with features (ISO control, voice memos, etc. etc.) but that doesn't matter if all you want is a sharp and accurate picture. Shame on the WSJ for recommending this camera.
Rating:
Summary: Xg is a Winner
Review: By far the best ultra compact, truly shirt pocket digital camera with the right combination of features. Not the best in the world, but real close. The start up time is less than a second and your ready to shoot. One mode for fully automatic with preprogrammed settings for portait, sport, sunset, night, and landscape. Another mode to have more granular control of sensitivity, white balance, and exposure. Prints great 4x6 pictures on glossy paper, which is 99.9% of the type of pictures I will print. Comes with a 16MB SD card allowing continuous shooting at 1.5 frames per second. There is a 3x optical zoom that is non-protruding. Great technology with great pictures. I haven't taken a camera on trips due to their bulkiness. Yes, I'm lazy. The Xg is easily kept in a shirt pocket readily available when the urge strikes.
Rating:
Summary: Poor flash, useless indoor
Review: Compact camera with tiny flash. Pretty much useless in the evening, or indoor. Can't focus most of the time (indoor/evening). No capability for external flash. Pictures taken during the day is good, especially using "spot" metering.
I bought this for my wife. She has indoor/evening meetings all the time, and this camera is just useless for her. *sigh*
Maybe I am asking too much for little price.
Rating:
Summary: Best compact digital camera out there
Review: Here is a little history of my digital camera use. I started using dig cameras when a 640 x 480 camera was $350. Now they practically give away these cameras away in cereal boxes. Since then I've used fuji mx2900, fuji mx4900, coolpix 990, SLR-type Minolta N-10, and minolta N-20. Now I have a the Mionolta Xg and I must say it is the easiest to use out of all the cameras I've tested. Usually the battery life is inaccurate. On many cameras, after 50-60 pictures and the battery is dead. I went to korea, and I took over 160 pictures on one battery! Thus, I bought an extra battery for no reason. The size is incredible, and the start up time is the best. It is quite frustrating when you want to capture something and you have to wait for your camera to start up. This camera starts in a mere 0.8 seconds.
Additionally, the camera has a fairly sturdy casing and automatic lens cover. finally, the LCD is one of the best I've used in overly bright light conditions.
Cons:
One con is the iso only goes upto 400. This makes night shots difficult. Plus since it is hard to control the white balance, you may need to adjust some of your night shots on the computer. Additionally, there is distortion around the corners of the pictures. It is a trade of for the internal zoom lens system. This also causes slight vignetting, which is most obvious when taking pictures of a clear blue horizon. If you want to take perfect pictures and have complete control then buy an SLR film camera. If you want a light weight easy to use camera that can go anywhere, then buy a digital like the Dimage Xg.
Rating: 
Summary: Sneaky Shooter for Okay Photos
Review: I have a Nikon 990 digital camera for work and personal projects. My wife wanted a digital camera to replace her Olympus Stylus. The Stylus is an excellent camera for travel and fun so we wanted something that would compare in quality but be even smaller. So we got the Minolta XG. I played with a friends Xt for a week and I agree, this XG felt like a downgrade instead of an upgrade.
A totally different look in our photos. We turn the flash on for all photos, inside our outside on subjects and it makes a huge difference. After adjusting the camera f and shutter settings for your lighting and personal style the shots are still dark. Any more adjustments will make the shots blurry or washed out.
We get photos from ofoto and they come out okay. Not as good as the Nikon 990 or film rolls we send in but good scenery shots. Startup is fast, I can whip the camera out of the pocket my family always wants the photos I take because it can capture the moment faster than anyone else with their gadgets. Shot to shot lags more than I expected.
That is important to me - capturing the moment. Two buttons, no knobs or fiddling, just boom, boom, shoot. I wish the shots did not have as many artifacts in lowerlight and skintones. Overall, a good camera for someone who has kids or needs a second camera for the moments that you might miss because you did not have a camera on you.
If you get this camera, watch your finger or thumb over the lens. Also, do not depend on centering a shot in the LCD display. It is way off from the actual lens.
Rating:
Summary: Good, basic, camera
Review: I have had one of these cameras for about 2 weeks now. This is basically a fancy point and shoot camera. I am finding I am taking this little camera along everywhere because it is small and fun. I am taking it with me to places where I would never take a camera before.
I love the small size of this camera, and that it is super-easy to adjust the exposure up to + or - 2.0 EVs. (I have not found any way to specifically override shutter speed or f-stop; but there is a program which places the camera in shutter-speed preferred mode.) With its very small size, I found that my finger at first tended to get in front of the lens, which is at the top corner of the camera where the viewfinder window would ordinarily be. (The viewfinder is immediately adjacent, inboard from the lens, where the rangefinder window would ordinarily be.) The battery life is excellent. The autofocus works fine. Once focus is set, the shutter lag is minimal. There is spot autofocus and spot exposure metering available (requires scrolling through menus.) Sharpness is good for a point and shoot -- I am not expecting the same performance that I get from the high-end optics I attach to my Contax bodies. Distortion from the lens is less at all focal lengths than I expected, and contrast is reasonbly good. All-in-all, so far I am very happy with this little guy and heartily recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Not cut out to be
Review: I have had the camera a little over 10 months and all i can say is that it was a waste of money. Why? the lcd screen turned off one day, and Minolta refused to cover it saying it was caused by impact. the truth of the matter is that, i rarely used the camera; and when i did take it out, it was kept in a camera case. Now i have a 400 dollar dead camera. I do have a Olympus C4000 that i use for regular daily photography and it has served me fine for 2 years with no problems! If I had known the camera was so fragile that it broke on its own, then maybe i would have bought another brand.
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