Customer Reviews

Konica Minolta Dimage X1 8MP Digital Camera with 3x Anti Shake Zoom (Cradle Included)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I've had this camera for about three weeks now so this is not a complete review. This is a replacement for the Canon S100 Digital Elph which I had for almost five years. That broke and I got the Konica Minolta here in Asia before it was released in the US.

There are several shortcomings with the Konica Minolta:
1) Flash is limited to about 6 feet or so. TERRIBLE!
2) Lowlight picture taking is quite poor. The lense has difficulty focusing and there is no manual adjust. AGAIN, TERRIBLE.
3) There is a big lag time between shots due to long processing time. YOU WILL MISS LOTS OF PICTURES!
4) LCD has very large pixels which makes it difficult to see details.
5) The camera is pretty large and bulky.
6) Shutter speed is limited to 1/250 sec.
7) No manual controls.

There are good things:
1) Battery lasts about 90 minutes of continual use.
2) Macro photography is pretty good - UNDER PERFECT CONDITIONS.
3) Controls are very intuitive - it is SIMPLE to use.
4) The Anti Shake technology is effective.
5) The video is good.
6) Despite the sheer heft and size it is a sleek design, but only the back of the camera.
7) Overall picture quality is ok under PERFECT conditions.

I needed a camera quickly. If you are not in a hurry, it may pay to shop around.

UPDATE - I have sent four emails and left three voicemails to KM over a one month period and have yet to hear back from this company. DO NOT BUY THIS PIECE OF JUNK!!!

If I could, I would re-rate this camera as one star since zero is not an option.

UPDATE #2-
1) You will miss lots of pictures due to the long processing time. You'll attempt to take a shot but by the time the camera actually records the image from the time you press the button it's SEVERAL seconds later. I can't tell you how frustrating this is. I can't believe they put out a camera like this. It's really unbelievable.

2) My old Canon took much better pictures than this. Pics are extremely "noisy" and forget low-light pictures. Get the 1 GB card, because you'll need to take about 20 shots to make sure you get one that turns out. Again, unbelievable.

DO NOT BUY
DO NOT BUY
DO NOT BUY
DO NOT BUY
DO NOT BUY
DO NOT BUY
DO NOT BUY

The review from Thailand was right on about this camera. He might have a better experience (still not a perfect experience) after he downloads the Camera's firmware 1.10 version (or later).

I have a feeling Minolta released the camera a bit too soon. I had purchased this camera after my Canon IXUS 500 (in Asia)/PowerShot S500 (in USA) got damaged while I was flying to Singapore. The sales person in Singapore convinced me that this was the latest technology for digital cameras. As I took this camera around on my trip, I found many things I didn't like about it. One thing that this camera has is the "cool new item" factor.

Out of the box.. I would give this camera.. one star.
The shutter speed was almost painful for me. The egronomics of the camera does not appeal both to the photographer and to the subjects (the people getting their picture taken).

#1 I found the multi-flash (3 flashes) resulted in poor shots. People thought I was done with my shot after the first flash. The good news is that the Firmware update 1.10 fixed this.

#2 The position of the lens in the upper right corner was a bad idea. Many shots resulted in many shots with a "flesh colored fog cloud" which was my finger.

#3 For the price, Minolta should have provided a bigger SD Card. The provided 32MB SD Memory Card is a joke. This will only hold about 8-15 pictures.

On my return home, I realized that I didn't have the CD ROM provided by Mintola. A look on their support website resulted in a message stating that I must buy a new CD from some other site The sales guy in Singapore told me that Windows XP computers didn't require the drivers. That wasn't so. My Windows XP couldn't recognize the USB Cradle and the Camera. I'm stuck without the CD, but I can still transfer files using the SD Memory.

In summary.. The features and the appearance of this camera are first class. The practical short comings of the physical ergonomics are some what painful. After installing the firmware file, much of the operational shortcomings have improved. Now I feel like I'm getting the class of camera I bought at that price.

I have bought several Minolta Dimage X, and Xi cameras over the years. For myself and for others. They are a great product, and even at 3 megapixels the Xi gave excellent sharp pictures with great color.

The Dimage X1 is NOT a Minolta product. It is a Konica product. I have seen the old Konica cameras and I never would have bought one. I had expected to get a better Xt, instead I got something that was less than the Xt, a different shape, much heavier, bad color, EXTREMELY SLOW!!!

If any of you have owned the older Dimage X and Xt, you would know that it had a very fast start up and no shutter lag to speak of.

This camera is slower starting up, and there is a noticeable shutter lag.

It is very unfortunate that Konica now owns Minolta. They tried to pull a fast one here. Whatever you do, do not buy this! Konica Minolta needs to get back on track and put out a product worthy of the Minolta name.

Slapping a Minolta label onto a Konica camera does not improve performance - well, only sales, buy thats very short lived, until everyone figures out what they have done.,

Buy a Minolta Xt - its cheaper and better all the way around.

Take a look @ the Konica Minolta Dimage E500 5MP to see the sister product that preceded the Konica Minolta Dimage X1. You see horrible reviews across the board on the stuff made by Konica.

Then take a look at the reviews for the models originally made by Minolta, such as the Dimage X and Dimage Xi.

Good luck getting your reputation back Konica. Unfortunatly now I have one of these that I opened the box and used it. Amazon says they will charge me a 20% to 50% restocking fee! And all I did was open it and use it for a day before giving up on this P.O.S. Amazon needs to protect their customers better than that. Konica pulled a fast one trying to pass off a Konika digital camera as a quality Minolta Dimage camera. And us the consumer is getting screwed :(

I just received my Konica Minolta Dimage X1 camera with a 512 MB SD card in the mail. Admittedly, I was somewhat worried that I had made the wrong choice based on what I read here. After playing with and testing the camera extensively, however, I respectfully disagree with much of what has been said here. It is true that the shutter was slow, but after upgrading to v. 1.10 of the firmware, which Minolta released in October 2005, the camera performed more quickly. That should do away with any pre-October 2005 criticism of this camera's speed.

As for the remaining issues, such as ISO speeds and professional functionality, it is true that you only get ISO 50-200 and that many advanced features are not present. But guess what? This is a stylish point and shoot that will draw stares and produce brilliant and beautiful photographs for anyone. If you want professional features, buy a prosumer or SLR camera. ISO 50 + fine quality + anti-shake made all of my images look wonderful in iPhoto when resized to almost any dimensions.

This is a solid performer in my opinion. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to take beautiful shots quickly and easily.

I just bought this camera thinking that because it's the newest release, it'd be the best. Wrong! Though I did not have the time to play with every feature available, I used the standard settings to take regular still pictures. The pics came out grainy no matter how near or far the subject was. The processing time was slow with a black screen. I compared the pics with those taken from my older 5MP minolta, and the 5MP was so much clearer! I might have been able to tweak the settings to make the quality of pics better, but because I needed a new camera right away, I chose to just return this one for another model. The biggest gripe of all: the memory card was next to impossible to remove from the camera!!! I have small fingers, but the battery compartment door does not open all the way down, and the card slot is so near the hinge, that you'd practically need a pair of tweezers to remove it!
If these things aren't a problem for you, than by all means this is a good camera, in terms of looks and extras that come with it. Otherwise, look into getting another model/brand and try out the card slots before getting one too. I never thought removing a card would be a problem with new cameras...

OK I read all of the other reviews on the x1 camera and it scared me a little but I went ahead and bought one anyway, since I owned the Xi (3.2MP) version and loved it and we have a Minolta Dimage 7Hi (SLR) at work. I am a graphic designer and a photographer so I know my digital cameras.

I wanted a small pocket digital camera that I can carry with me for when I come accross opportunistic shots.

The Konica/Minolta DiMage X1 is a great camera. It is not at the level of an SLR but it is not meant to be.

It is NOT slow. Those who report it being slow are either using some older version of the software or maybe a slow SD Card. Make sure you buy a fast SD card. It takes longer to save 8MB picture to an SD card than a 3.2MB picture - that is simple logic. But having said that, I find the X1 saves the 8MP photo only slightly slower than the Xi did. Other things that affect save time are how complex and detailed the photo is and what setting you have set for quality. Play with them. AND GET A FAST SD CARD. I recommend the CORSAIR 133x 1GB Secure Digital (SD) Card Model CMFSD133-1GB.

As far as low light photos go, yeah the flash is only good to about 6 feet or so. But that is standard with any of this little pocket cameras. You can't cram a huge telephoto flash unit into a package this small. Ain't gonna happen.

The weight and size are very close to the Xi model.
The LCD is large and clear and easy to view.
The Menus are easy to use.

If you liked the Xi you will like the X1.

Again, the overly negative reviews on this camera are just plain WRONG. Either Minolta fixed the problems they had or they were just mistaken or overly picky to begin with. Plus go look up some professional reviews done by photography sites and magazines. They seem to love it too.


I am happy I got this camera.

I have read the recent Amazon customer reviews on the DiMAGE X1 and I do not understand some of the negative comments. I bought one for a friend last month and have used theirs since and found the results to be great plus the stabilization allowed me to get some sharp low light and close up shots that would not have been possible without a tripod. True, it's not the fastest camera around, but I purchased the camera because of it's size, 8MP, and anti-shake features. I use my Maxxum 5D DSLR for that kind of fast shooting. I think some of these users are expecting a point and shoot type camera to perform like a DSLR that it never was designed for.

For an industry point of view, potential buyers may want to check out January's '06 Shutterbug magazine test report which rates this camera so high that the author admits he would recommended the DiMAGE X1 to his friends.

RJ

I gave this camera 1 star because that is the least available. It certainly does not deserve even the one star as it is a terrible camera. I own a Minolta Xt and at 3.2 MP, I get far better results than from this useless camera. It's hard to believe that a company could make a similar model worse with time. I have been using a Fuji camera the past year and wanted a second camera. The Fuji makes it not worth even bothering with the three Minolta cameras I own. This X1 is slow, focuses slowly and very poorly if at all and renders absolutley terrible pictures. The LCD on the camera is incredibly grainy so when the pictures came out not much better, it was hard to believe. My camera came with the newer firmware and I can see no value to this camera. I can see no effect of the anti-shake feature with this camera producing as many or more blurred pictures as the Minolta Xt. Color quality on the pictures that are worth saving is generally very poor. The truly sharp in-focus picture is a rarity with this camera. Tech support, as usual from Minolta, is non-existant since they do not respond to on-site tech requests. I can't think of anything worse they could have done when making a camera. This one is slow and produces blurry and generally low quality pictures. The worst of it is, besides wasting your money, you end up losing valuable picture taking opportunities that should not be squandered. The only question for Minolta is Why?

I used to own a Minolta and it was very fast, so I expected this one to at least have some good qualities as far as performance. The looks and price caught my eye ($349.99), although I actually went to the store looking for a particular camera. I am glad I did not end up buying this camera. I was lucky enough that a worker at the store opened a new box so I could fiddle with it since their display model had no batteries in it. So I played around with it for quite awhile, even walked around with it a little to test its focusing. Though I canoot say how the photo quality is with this camera, I can tell you this.. it is terribly slow. The screen darkens to almost black when it seems to do anything. I noticed it first turning it on, then I noticed it after each quick preview of the pics I had just taken. Maybe it has something to do with the flash charging, but I don't know why the screen has to darken for as long as it does. I would think people would still like to see what's going on on the screen whether or not the camera is ready to take another picture. As another reviewer noted, this is probably the work of Konica and not a true Minolta product.

At the time that I bought this camera, there were no reviews because it was so new. I bought it anyway because I liked the way it looked and because it had over 8 MPs. I was completely disappointed when I got the camera and realized that I couldn't have made a bigger mistake. The LCD monitor was dark and blurry. I felt like I was watching an old video that had been copied over many times. The picture quality was horrible. The pictures appeared to have this haze over it and most of them were blurry.

This was literally the worst camera that I had ever come across. Luckily, I was able to return it for a full refund, but I recommend not wasting your time on this camera.