Rating: 
Summary: I would buy it again.
Review: I looked at many many digital cameras before buying this one. I finally decided to buy it because it looked like it had everything I needed and it was cheaper than others. Well, I am really happy with my purchase. I bought this camera in 11/01 so I have had it for a long time. I have taken it to Hawaii and Florida and just around town and it has not failed me yet. Indoor pictures are not great with this camera but they are not horrible. I have taken some professional looking pictures with this camera and look at them on the computer daily. I would not even think about using regular batteries with it though, that would be a joke. This camera does suck battery juice like crazzzy. I enjoy taking pictures and this camera really has been great. I use webshots on my computer and I have my pictures of Hawaii cycle through on the desktop everyday, actually every 15 minutes. People are always commenting on them asking if they are professional pictures. I even printed some of them out and they looked great. If you do not have a lot of money to spend and want a pretty good camera I would go with this one. It really has just about everything. ...
Rating:
Summary: I would buy it again.
Review: I looked at many many digital cameras before buying this one. I finally decided to buy it because it looked like it had everything I needed and it was cheaper than others. Well, I am really happy with my purchase. I bought this camera in 11/01 so I have had it for a long time. I have taken it to Hawaii and Florida and just around town and it has not failed me yet. Indoor pictures are not great with this camera but they are not horrible. I have taken some professional looking pictures with this camera and look at them on the computer daily. I would not even think about using regular batteries with it though, that would be a joke. This camera does suck battery juice like crazzzy. I enjoy taking pictures and this camera really has been great. I use webshots on my computer and I have my pictures of Hawaii cycle through on the desktop everyday, actually every 15 minutes. People are always commenting on them asking if they are professional pictures. I even printed some of them out and they looked great. If you do not have a lot of money to spend and want a pretty good camera I would go with this one. It really has just about everything. ...
Rating: 
Summary: Minolta S304
Review: I purchased this camera after a lot of research. Initially it was not in my budget but a [amt] price drop happened at just the right time.
The camera takes very sharp pictures, I have a 1.3Mp camera and these pictures are an order of magnitude sharper, especially when you crop, enlarge, etc.
I do agree with another review, you MUST have rechargeable batteries and let them charge overnight or you will only take about 20 minutes of pictures and get a low battery signal and the camera will shut down. I bought 2 sets of batteries just to be sure to have one set always charged.
The optics on this camera are very nice, no chromatic abberations (purple fringing), very little flat noise, colors are very good, even better (print wise) when run through the Image Viewer software.
I highly recommed this camera for the quality of optics, the fair amount of manual control and great photos!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent camera
Review: I purchased this camera after quite a bit of research. I looked at Sony, Canon, and Fuji cameras. The Minolta S304 had the features I wanted (plus some extras), for a great price. The only negative is that it eats batteries like there is no tomorrow. But that is a problem with ALL digital cameras. You must get at least 2 sets of rechargeable batteries if you're going to take the camera out for a day of shooting. Don't use standard Alkaline batteries, they won't last 30 minutes. One hint for improving battery life. The LCD screen is the major culprit for eating batteries. If you're used to taking pictures through the viewfinder, continue doing so with any digital camera. Turn off the LCD. The batteries will last at least twice as long. Memory cards are very very cheap today. If you're going to spend $... on a camera, spend the $... for a 128 mb memory card. That way you'll have plenty of memory to take all the photos you want without having to delete the bad ones in the middle of your day to save card space. With the Minolta S304 set on Fine and an image size of 1200x800, I can take 172 photos on a 128 mb card. That is a LOT of pictures. As for those people who have problems using the USB hookup. Why are you still using Windows 98?? It was the very first version of Windows to have USB support and it was beyond buggy. Upgrade to at least Windows 2000. I have Windows ME and the USB works flawlessly. Great camera, great features, and it looks like a real camera.
Rating:
Summary: USE RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES - IMPORTANT
Review: I read a lot of reviews about the short battery life. Well, the battery life will be short if you use alkaline batteries. If you buy a digital camera make sure you also buy a set of NiMH batteries and a charger. Maybe the manufacturers are making a big mistake including alkaline batteries with their digicams.
Rating:
Summary: I LOVE it!
Review: I received this camera for Christmas and I've enjoyed it throughly. Takes great pictures and it's very easy to use. I also agree with other posts that it eats batteries really fast. That's why rechargables were invented!
Rating: 
Summary: Thumbs Down
Review: I recieved the product for a Christmas present. The OEM batteries lasted for only 7 exposures. Thinking that I might be doing something wrong I made every effort to conserve battery power and stretched the life to 8 exposures. The camera seems like it was designed by a committee that didn't communicate. The zoom control is awkward and inconvenient to use. There was no easy way that I could find to get the LCD screen to default to OFF (to save power). I returned the product to the retailer and was told that in the two weeks since Christmas, over 40 of the model had been returned by dissatisfied customers. In two days I used 48 batteries for 90 images. To Minolta's credit, the photo images were of excellent quality.
Rating:
Summary: Price and Perfomance
Review: I think it's a great camera for the $$. 4x optical gives great results. Drawbacks include autofocus takes time in lower light situations. Probably common with many digital cameras. Eats batteries, but 2 four packs of rechargeable AA batteries solved that problem.
Rating:
Summary: Great value at this price
Review: I think this camera has been overshadowed by its cousins - Dimage 5 and Dimage 7. But the S304 uses much of the same technology in a smaller package. The S304 has been compared to Nikon Coolpix 995 and this compares favorably at a much lower price. And if you are looking for a 'conventional' digital point and shoot this should be high on your list. Pros: 4x zoom lens, 5 preset shooting modes (portrait, macro, landscape etc), movie mode with sound, lot of optional manual settings allows you to 'grow into' the camera, great value for a 3 megapixel camera with the recent price drops, sleek looks(!) Cons: Some problems with autofocus in low light (but a lot of point and digicams have this problem). Please note that this camera uses a proprietary color space. Conversion to sRGB color space using the included software improves the colors as they appear on the monitor. But this is a fast process and is also optional. (There is not much difference after the conversion - for most people who will be using the camera). Please note that many of the other sites where you may find lower prices may not be reliable. Of course, you need not worry if you are ordering from Amazon !! And if happen to be a user of this camera please share your feedback and comments here.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Like It
Review: I've had many problems taking pics in the autofocus mode: many, many pics are not sharply focused, even in good lighting situations. In low light, forget it hardly anything turns out well. Also, the flash tends to make many pics too bright with skin tones looking washed out. Also, if there is a white object in your field of view the resulting image usually shows a white blotch with hardly enough detail to make out what the object is. Also, the video mode feature is arbitrarily limite to 60 seconds rather than being limited by the size of memory card; so even if you have 256k memory, you still can only take a 60 second video. VERY disappointed.
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