Rating: 
Summary: Best small digital camera
Review: This is the third very small digital camera I have purchased and is by far the very best. The highest quality picture setting creates files that are far bigger than necessary for even the finest prints. The color reproduction is as good or better than any film camera I have used. The camera is extremely small, yet easy to use. It powers on in 1 second and seems to be able to keep up, no matter how quickly I continue to shoot new pictures. This had been the major problem with digital cameras and in the past, I would loose many great shots because the battery was still trying to recharge...
Definitely buy the camera...
Rating:
Summary: Sweet Sweet Micro
Review: I've been looking for something to replace/augment my giant three-year-old Sony, which I love but is just too big and heavy to cart all over Europe and around town. Plus the shutter lag drives me nuts. I needed something that was shirt-pocket small, fast, but with enough features to be useful for more than the most basic snapshots. Specifically, I wanted a bit of optical zoom. When I travel, I find I'm using the zoom constantly to frame up the shots a little better. Frankly, I don't care about resolution; 2 megapixels is plenty for me, and that's what I'll use my Xt for most of the time. I compared all of the leading contenders (as of July 2003) -- various Canon ELPHs, Casio Exilim, Pentax Optio S, and even the new "lipstick" Sony DSC-U30. Everybody loves to rag on Memory Sticks, but if you already have a Sony camera and a Sony laptop and a good supply of big Sticks, they're a plus, not a minus; going with SD or CF was going to cost me a lot extra. But the Sony dropped out early because of the lack of zoom. The others, well, people like to pretend that making a decision like this is science, but it's not. I read everything I could and took a stab at it. Frankly, from what I've seen I would have rated the others just as high because they are all AMAZING. But I chose the Minolta. And I love it. In short: Optio too slow, ELPH too heavy, Casio has no TV-out (and was out of stock in my local shop, or I might very well have bought it instead). One thing I noted to my great relief with all of these, and which is usually stated nowhere on any of the manufacturer's pages even, is that they all have battery chargers that are small and 110-240 volt, which means you can charge batteries in Europe without a bulky converter -- just the right-size plug adapter, which you can get anywhere for almost nothing. So the problem with the battery isn't a problem at all -- buy a second battery and keep them both charged up overnight and you can snap all day with any of these cameras in any country in the world (unless you're camping or something). What sold me on the Xt was the folded prism lens. Less mechanicals is always good with miniature things, and less fragile things poking out of the front is good too. The Minolta's not as small as the Optio (which is the clear frontrunner in the micro-coolness stakes -- that phrase "fits in an Altoids tin" is very tempting. But the Minolta STAYS small even when you're shooting, and because it doesn't have to run a motor so much, it takes faster pictures. Which was probably my #2 criteria after size. I haven't had any trouble at all with the small controls; they're extremely well-designed and you can figure out 90% of what it does just by fiddling with it -- I read the manual but I don't have to carry it with me! If anything, and this is a general complaint with all cameras in this range (and others), there's TOO MANY features, most of which can be found in PhotoShop later. "Digital zoom" is a con and could be left out, and who really uses the "sepia" setting? But the stuff I DO want is all there, within reason (no f stops, but ISO and Exposure Level controls). I do like the many presets in the Casio, but realistically I know I'll never use them. I'm pretty adept in PhotoShop/PaintShopPro. Note that I have horrible eyesight, thick specs, and big stubby fingers and have no trouble. You might want to trim those nails, though; fortunately I don't have any. Picture quality is excellent. I believe it's a little better than the contenders. The flash is very good, better than I expected; in fact it's a little TOO good if you're at the close end of the scale; I'm going to try the "square of white paper" trick on it. Is it the best camera on earth? No. But it's better than the other sub-micros. The coolness factor isn't as high as the Pentax, but then how could it be? But it's faster-shooting. And, really, if the Pentax is a "10" for coolness, the Minolta is a 9.6. It doesn't fit in a tin, but it's smaller than you can believe, and the engineering is just as amazing (just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not amazing -- quite the opposite, I'd say). And, of course, I have a friend with an Optio (and another with an ELPH), so you'll understand I had to have a different one! One unanswered question: is it "DIMM udjge" (like "image") or "dim AJZH" (like "DiMaggio")? Another one: why does Amazon "recommend" batteries that don't work in this camera? Bottom line: it does everything my big camera does and more, and when I put it in my shirt pocket it doesn't even sag. Comes on fast, shoots fast, enough for no-look street candids. Easy to use. Flat-out amazing. What else are you looking for?
Rating:
Summary: The best just got even better!
Review: I've been a fan of the Dimage X series since the first Dimage X was released almost 2 years ago. These are just wonderful cameras that take good pictures, sport an ingenius periscope-like optical zoom system, and are totally hip and useful. The Xt is a bit hard to find on the street as it's new. Internally it's pretty much the same specs as the previous model, the Xi, but it's slightly more compact. Is that a big deal? Well, yes, how could you have asked? The smaller, the better! At least that's the belief of these smart nerdy Japanese engineers. If you have big hands I'd recommend a larger Minolta model like the F series, or a Canon or Nikon or Kodak. But if you just want cute take-anywhere cameras, the Xt is PERFECT. The Casio Exilim may have a cooler form factor, but the Exilim doesn't come with optical zoom so is best for very casual photography like when you feel bored on a subway or bus and want to take pictures of city scenes. The Xt has more uses. For one thing, it's just great for travel photography (as long as you don't need 300mm zoom for Safari pictures). With the release of the Xt, Minolta is now a serious contender in the consumer digital camera field and I think they represent a better value than Canon, my previous favorite brand.
Rating:
Summary: A superb compromise...
Review: The XT is the first/only camera that matched my four essentials:
- Tiny.
- 3 Megapixels or more.
- Optical zoom.
- Minimal shutter lag. The camera is virtually perfect for its role - a shirt-pocket camera that takes pictures good enough to print. It probably will lose some points on technical merit - such as a little vignetting and distortion when shooting test scenes, but none of these are noticeable on a day-to-day basis.
With its portability, fast startup, and minimal shutter lag, you'll be taking pictures when no-one else can. It even doubles as a primitive video camera when the need arises. The only significant issue I've come across is with flash photography when red-eye-reduction is disabled (to keep shutter lag low). The camera, it seems, actually flashes twice in very quick sucession - once to gauge exposure, and again to take the picture. I have found that the first flash causes some subjects to blink such that the picture (and second flash) is always taken when their eyes are closed. I'd also like to see the little charger stand made more useful - it should power (not just charge) the camera, and it would be great if the charger stand would be a USB dock rather than having to fiddle with the USB cable each time.
Rating: 
Summary: X20 is a scaled down version of Xt
Review: This is to Superman2K3.
I am not an owner of this product, but let me comment Mon this.
While X20 should be a good staff, but it is essenially a scaled down version of Xt.
It is 2 Mega Pixel instead of 3 of XT.
It is slightly thicker than Xt, because of battery.
The prism is replaced with mirror, which is cheaper.
CCD is smaller
.
I am wondering which one to buy, because X20 has USB 2.0, and also as Superman2K3, battery operation is handy.
Biggest drawdown would be it has only 2mega pixel and smaller CCD. I might wait 6 months.
Rating: 
Summary: Good camera but there are better options!
Review: Xt is superb pocket camera with 3MP and 3x zoom, prefect for snapshots. Its got Video out port to show pics on TV and also has a very solid build quality. Xt is a good camera with one fatal flaw. It uses propreitary Li-Ion battery. A new model (Dimage X20) is now available with AA batteries and same size. Ofcourse if you want the best picture quality in a pocket sized camera Canon Elph is the way to go.
Rating:
Summary: A couple tips & Tricks to make the camera 5 stars
Review: Actually, I would give this camera a 5 star rating if it weren't for the pesky ISO 400 setting. (Normally under low light situations, the DimageXt will jump to an ISO400.) Unfortunately, this ISO is super grainy. Yeah, you'll get your pictures ...but if you want little grain in the picture, you should lower the ISO to a max of 200. Also, when taking pictures with this camera, watch out for your left hand finger. Not only can you easily cover a portion of the lens (causing vignetting) but you can easily inadvertently touch the lens and get your grimy oil all over it. OK - so the juicy stuff. Form Factor - 5 stars Function Factor - 4 stars. (The pictures can be underdeveloped a little too easily) Additionally, a small but consistent number of pictures had a little more red or purple masking than was needed. This is easily fixed in Photoshop through the auto-color or similar functions. Conclusion: I highly recommend this camera. It's a very fun camera, and if you're like me, a camera like this allows you to take pictures in places you wouldn't normally want to bring your SLR. :)
Rating:
Summary: The Best of The Best and Practical Too
Review: I have owned two four meg cameras,Minolta F100,Olympus early four meg.The F100 was a great camera in all its features including simple double A-A recharable batteries that lasted easily using a 128 stick. The Olympus was great except it used batteries like a Texas Oil well,Thats why I bought the F100. Then Came along the Sony two meg DSCU20 my # 3 camera. The U20 is the best small camera I have yet to use in it's basic functions are very practical for point and shoot. Why because it has a fixed lense that allows instant start up for quick pictures that I have made very good 8 X 10 blow-ups on shots that had good framing on the exposure. The 8 meg stick would hold 14-15 picture that averaged 650 KB. I then reviewed my pictures from the four meg cameras and those were 960 to 1.3 KB
and later realized that usig my new Minolta XT 3.2 meg camera by setting the image siz to 2048 X1536 and then the quality to TIFF my pictures were much biger in pixel size, 9.2 meg's.
The problem was it took ten times longer to shoot and internally record each picture ( about 60 sec) then I moved one step down in pixal size (1600 X 1200) and fine setting on quality and my picture exposures was much quicker and produced about a 900 kb size picture and decided that I would only use the max setting for pictures that I had to have the max pixal size. In short you will realy be impressed with the lowest setting and still have the option from 640 X 480, 1280 X 960, 1600 X 1200, 2048 X 1536 image size along with quality setting's: TIFF, Fine, Standard, Economy. Using the max setting you will fill a 128 meg stick with about 15 picures and much more as you reduce the pixal size of each picture using the above combination that fits your actual needs. I am now with the opinion that a four meg camera is not the best way to record pictures when with some field work you will find that a 3.2 meg ( Minolta XT) is an outstanding developement for range of quality pictures. I still have my Sony U20 because it is a quality built; simple wide angle camera for those quick shots sized perfectly (640 kb) for Email.
Rating:
Summary: I love mine, but a few warnings...
Review: For me, the compact size of the camera was key. I also liked that all of the zoom was internal, leaving less possibility of problems with focusing and external zoom damage (e.g. getting sand in the camera if you take it to the beach). I found that it stacked up nicely with others in it's price range; however, I would not recommend this camera for a 1st-time-digital-camera owner. The features and settings are in depth. The major downfall of this camera, I think, is that with it's compact size it begs to be taken everywhere, but the camera does not come with a case. My screen is pretty scratched now, and I've had mine for about 6 months. I'm not rough on it, it just accumulates, and I'm noticing now that it seems to be from the positioning of the plastic part on the wrist strap. As a precaution I'd also get a case of some sort.
Rating:
Summary: Fast and friendly.
Review: This is a great little camera. Not sure I can say anything that hasn't been said already about it but overall I'm pretty happy with it.
I always use the LCD screen as my viewfinder. The normal one leaves out a good deal (around the edges) of what will actually be captured in the image. A larger screen would be nice, but the pan and zoom in the review feature and the ability to remove all the on-screen notifiers help make up for the small screen.
The lack of a normal AC adapter is sometimes annoying.
I've had problems with blurred images and the flash will sometimes wash my images in blue. I have yet to figure out how to get around these problems.
As mentioned in other reviews, this camera is super portable and starts up fast. It has all the features I'd want in a quick on-the-go camera. It's definitely not for more advanced photo shooting but as a handy vacation/amateur camera, it's awesome. The webcam feature produces much better images than most of the crappy webcams out there, too.
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