Rating: 
Summary: Manufacturing Defect
Review: Bought this camera after reading many reviews and doing a lot of research. My camera had a pixel problem, after viewing pictures on computer and printing, there was a bright white/purplish speckle in the same spot in every photo.Could not return to Newegg (they would not accept an exchange even though it says right here they would exchange for exact item only!), had to contact manufacturer. Surprisingly they were helpful and I have to ship the camera away for repairs. I will update on how long it takes as this could make or break my opinion of Konica Minolta. The camera, aside from that problem, is really nice and worked well. I was shocked at how small it was and how fast it worked. I wish there was no "speckle" in my photos... I would have praised this camera everywhere.
Rating: 
Summary: Impressive in size and features
Review: I am very, very pleased with my purchase of the Minolta G400; it slides into a pocket effortlessly, offers fairly powerful manual exposure control, good battery life and the fastest startup time I've seen in any digital camera. I've used a Minolta S404 for all my previous digital photography, so I was looking for a small camera I could keep in my pocket. I confirmed its usability as a quick snap-shot camera at a wedding I attended yesterday; you really can turn it on, take a photo, and turn it off in under 2 seconds. The incredibly fast startup time makes the G400 an outstanding camera for capturing precious, unbelievable, fleeting moments. Auto-focus in low light takes more time than in bright light, but the longest I've waited has been a little over a second. Overall, the G400 focuses much faster than my Minolta S404, which took one second in the best case. Battery life is good; the included battery lasts as long as my S404 with 4 AA 1900 mAh rechargeable batteries. I'd encourage having a backup, though, just in case. I agree with previous reviewers: Canon's panoramic assist mode is nice, but I can live without it. The on-screen menus are different than any camera I've seen, but I understood it pretty quickly. Being different is not always horrible. Amount of manual control elevated the G400 above the Pentax Optio S4/S4i and Canon S400/410/500. The S4i's incredibly small size (hides behind a credit card!) certainly intrigued me, but its startup time was slightly longer (two seconds, from what I read) and it did not have manual shutter speed control. The S4i does have some manual control, but the G400 has pretty much the maximum manual shutter and exposure control available in a consumer camera. It does not have custom white balance, but I've never used it, so it wasn't an issue for me. I also wanted a tripod mount, a feature missing from some super-slim cameras, but available here, though it's unfortunately made of plastic. Picture quality is wonderful. Skin tones look good and flora detail is really nice. I took a photo of a tree outside my house and literally did a double take when viewing it on the computer; the leaves looked amazingly crisp. The Minolta G400 disappears in your pocket and frees your mind from thinking about your camera. Highly recommended for all photographers, beginner to advanced. The only worthwhile camera is the one you have with you, and the G400's size makes it ridiculously easy to carry.
Rating:
Summary: Compact / Fast / SD+MS friendly
Review: I had a Olympus D-360L prior, an excellent camera, but no zoom. I looked at the Canon S400, Pentax 555, Sony T1, Kyocera 300L. The Pentax had speed issues, the Sony was expensive, the Kyocera had no optical viewfinder and I did not like the split LCD, lens system which I thought would be difficult to control / coordinate. The Canon was almost my choice, but it was a little slower, more expensive, and the Minolta supported SD and memory stick formats. I have a Sony Clie SJ-22 that I wanted to display pictures with, using memory sticks. The Minolta is tiny, I can fit it into a case intended only for memory cards (Lowepro). It is also lightnening fast, I cannot see how much faster a camera could be. You slide the door, bring the camera to your eye, align the image, and shoot, there is no delay, another picture can be taken with only a 1-2 second (roughly) delay at normal settings.
The directional and telephoto buttons allow you to magnify and move the image on the LCD, the image moves on the screen without any blurring. The display of images is very fast.
The issue of autofocus in low light is somewhat apparent, but actually not that much different than my Olympus. The camera does seem to struggle a little in low light,-some autofocus delays, some exposure issues, but to me these are almost imperceptible, and I suspect they would be to most people. I suspect most compact digital cameras struggle in low light situations. Overall, outdoor picture quality is excellent, indoor is very good. Relative my olympus, there is not a huge difference, until you start to magnify images, and the greater resolution is evident. There are small issues with opening the camera cover, initially I found it a little difficult to get a good grip but I now have no problems. The menu system is not the best in terms of organization, but it is redundant (the same settings are available on many screens), and I have not had problems quickly changing settings. This is an excellent, compact, fast camera that unlike my old Olympus D360L, I can carry everywhere, in my shirt pocket if I want. It may not be a good choice for someone not used to digital gadgets, but anyone with experience with computers or PDA's should enjoy this camera.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Nice!
Review: I was trying to decide between this camera and the Canon S400. I chose the Minolta G400 and don't regret it at all. The main reason to choose this camera is its speed, weight, AND price. This camera is MUCH faster than the canon. The startup time is practically zero, there is virtually no shutter lag, and the shot to shot time is fast as well. I found the canon S400 to be much slower.
The autofocus routine is good.
It is also much lighter (in weight) than the canon which is nice.
The Minolta also has much more in the way of manual control.
The one thing that I wish this camera had is the panoramic option where you can stitch several pictures together using the LCD viewfinder (the canon has this feature). But I can do this with my computer later so this is not a bid deal.
Some people have said that the menu system is not organized well - I agree, but it is really not that bad.
I like that the battery charger (which comes with the camera) is external to the camera so I can charge a battery while still using the camera (I have 2 batteries). So with the exception of the panoramic feature of the canon S400, I could not find a reason to spend the extra $ to buy it over this Minolta G400. And now that I have it, I am glad I got the Minolta. My feeling is that the reason the canon S400 is so popular on Amazon is that people see that other people have bought it, so they buy it.
P.S. the Minolta G500 is actually an OLDER model than the G400 even though it is a 5M pixel.
Rating:
Summary: My First Digital
Review: I'm a college Freshman who wanted a decent beginner's camera to experiment with photography.
I poked around review websites for cameras in this pricerange, and came up with the Minolta G400. I ordered it over the other cameras primarily because of the awesome startup time (1/3 that of other cameras in its price/feature range). I'm extremely satisfied with my purchase.
The camera is small, light, and feels very durable. The sliding lens cover makes me feel comfortable toting the thing around and handing it over to other people. The batteries charge fast and last a while, and they're very small, so carrying an extra one around with you is hardly any hassle at all.
The pictures look awesome, and the available manual control lets you take pictures in a variety of lighting situations, assuming you have a steady hand. I was primarily interested in using the camera for purely digital work--editing in Photoshop, using in other digital projects--and the camera is amazing for that purpose; the full 4 megapixels aren't entirely necessary for that purpose.
I enjoy taking close photos, capturing small details, and the camera handles this great. The flash works really well, from what I can see, and I took a couple hundred photos without seeing any reduction in battery charge (about one-third were taken with flash).
I recommend this camera to anyone interested in getting their feet wet in the digital photography racket; it's small, cheap, and relatively feature-rich.
Rating:
Summary: Quite Impressed
Review: I've had my G400 for approximately 3 months and I'm fairly pleased with it. I am very pleased with it's quick start up, low shutter lag time, and quick flash charge, which is something that can be an issue with a lot of other digital cameras. I'm also very impressed with the battery life (approximately 185 still pictures according to the specs). The only thing I do not really like is the fact that you cannot use special effects after you've taken the picture, you have to set it before you take the picture. There aren't very many editing options on the camera itself. Although having a good photo editing software would probably do the trick. I actually was given the new Olympus Stylus Verve as an early Christmas present and was not satisfied with the picture quality at all compared to my G400 (so I returned it). Althought the G400 does have difficulty focusing in low (to almost no) light, I find that most of my pictures still come out clear anyway. In some situations, I found that using the viewfinder (turning off the screen) works a little better when in low light. I use a 256mb SD card for the camera and it can hold approximately 120-130 pictures at the highest resolution (4mp fine).
Rating:
Summary: Great camera to carry around in your shirt pocket
Review: I've had this camera (Konica Minolta Dimage G400) now for over two months and I'm very happy with it. The camera was actually developed mainly by Koncia before Konica and Minolta merged. It's basically a rebranded Konica Revio KD-410Z. I've  compared with three coworkers who bought the Sony DSC-T1: The Sony is about as fast, smaller and sleeker, but performs much worse in low light conditions.  I've seen quite a few pictures that were shot indoors and the flash didn't manage to properly light the scene. I don't think that should be happening with a camera that sells for $150 more than my camera. To nail this problem we took photos with both cameras under identical conditions. The G400 picture is slightly underexposed, but not bad considering it was almost dark in the room when I pressed the shutter. The T1 on auto setting on the other hand was underexposed by about two f-stops. Setting the T1 to ISO400 helped somewhat, but made the picture very noisy :( What tipped the scale for me is the overall quality of pictures and the absolutely amazing speed of the camera. In general I found that people talk too much about megapixels.What matters much more than actual megapixels (once you've moved past two megapixels) are the optical properties of the camera like lens, autofocus system, etc. The pictures I've taken so far were almost all very crisp with radiant colors. The colors were usually a bit too warm and could sometimes benefit from a bit of adjustment in Photoshop, but were excellent otherwise. Overall I'd say the camera has some flaws but is a very nice little point and shoot camera that offers lots of manual adjustments when you're ready for them. And given the current market prices for this camera this is one of the best buys out there. That's why I'm giving it five stars despite having some flaws. Oh, and I forgot to mention: Don't fall for this camera's big brothers the G500 and the G600! As I understand it, they don't have the fast passive autofocus system the G400 has and the G600 even has a crippled movie mode. And while we're speaking about the movie mode: 320x240 at 15 frames per second is not quite state of the art anymore and shouldn't be a factor in your buying decision of any digital still camera. If you insist on a decent movie mode, go and buy a digital camcorder. You'll have a lot more fun that way with ample storage space and a working optical and digital zoom.
Rating:
Summary: Very Nice!
Review: My girlfriend bought a Canon S400, which let me compare the two shot-by-shot. The S400 has a MUCH better (easier to use) menu system, and in full auto-mode, had slightly better color accuracy (although easy software adjustments eliminated any advantage whatsoever for the Canon).
That said, the Minolta was a noticeably faster shooter inside, outside, and in any other condition. While the Minolta slowed down somewhat under lowlight, the sharpness of images was a little better than the Canon in most settings, and the Minolta was a little more pocketable due to its thinner, less boxy design, though both were easily pocketable.
I didn't care at all about the dual memory stick/SD card system on the G400--until the first time I wanted to copy photos for someone else without using a computer. It's like having dual-disk drives in the old days--tremendously handy.
The batteries on the Minolta outlasted the Canon by about 20-30 shots (all with flash). That's not a big enough difference to mean much, though, since I'd still carry an extra battery (and the Canon batteries are much more readily available since they are the same as for so many other Digital Elphs).
EDITED: the device BROKE after six months. The engine that extended the lens simply petered out - stopped extending the lens. This being the fourth digital camera I've become familiar with, and since none of the others broke so easily, I must conclude that Konica Minolta cut corners and produced a really unreliable camera. A pity, but a good excuse to move on to a new digicam.
Rating:
Summary: speedy little shooter--compare Canon S400
Review: My girlfriend bought a Canon S400, which let me compare the two shot-by-shot. The S400 has a MUCH better menu system, and in full auto-mode, had slightly better color accuracy (although easy software adjustments eliminated any advantage whatsoever for the Canon). That said, the Minolta was a noticeably faster shooter inside, outside, and in any other condition. While the Minolta slowed down somewhat under lowlight, the sharpness of images was a little better than the Canon in most settings, and the Minolta was a little more pocketable due to its thinner, less boxy design, though both were easily pocketable. I didn't care at all about the dual memory stick/SD card system on the G400--until the first time I wanted to copy photos for someone else without using a computer. It's like having dual-disk drives in the old days--tremendously handy. The batteries on the Minolta outlasted the Canon by about 20-30 shots (all with flash). That's not a big enough difference to mean much, though, since I'd still carry an extra battery (and the Canon batteries are much more readily available since they are the same as for so many other Digital Elphs). The Minolta also had far more manual control than the Canon--which is useful as I slowly graduate from point'n'click amateur to intermediate skills with my camera. Didn't compare video recording (a feature I seldom use--I have my DV recorder for that) or voice memos.
Rating: 
Summary: Mixed Feelings
Review: My review is based on actual hands-on usage. This is my fourth digital camera in five years. Picture Quality:
----------------
Pros:
For a 4MP camera, I'd say the image quality is excellent. Crisp, clear, excellent exposure, accurate colors, and low noise. I'd say it produces images better than my older 4MP Sony S85. You can customize the color balance, saturation, and sharpness settings. Cons:
None really. I'm happy with the image quality given it's resolution and price. Handling & Feel:
---------------- Pros:
The camera is about the size of a deck of cards. The all metal body feels solid. Slide the cover open to power up the camera. It starts up almost instantly. You're ready to take picture in less than a second. The lens instantly retracts when you close the cover. The menu is easy to navigate. Cons:
The body is flat, so there is nothing to really grip on to. If your hands are sweaty, you can't get a good grip on the cover to open it, so you end up grabbing it from the end. If you do this, you'll end up dragging your fingers across the lens as you're trying to open the cover. Performance:
------------ Pros:
Low light autofocus worked well. No complaints. It defaults to 6 feet in total darkness. Cons:
The G400 is supposed to have a special hybrid autofocus that Minolta claims will perform in less than .25 seconds. My camera was probably defective since the autofocus averaged .75 seconds. I returned it, but I would probably give this camera another chance. Conclusion:
-----------
If I wasn't expecting lightning fast autofocus, I'd rate this camera five stars. It's small, easy to use, and takes great pictures. However, I specifically purchased the G400 because I was looking for lightning fast autofocus. In that regard, my camera was not functioning properly.
| 
