Konica Minolta DiMAGE X1 Digital Camera
- Camera Type: Compact
- Weight: 0.3 lb.
- LCD Screen Size: 2.5 in.
- Resolution: 8.3 Megapixel
- Optical Zoom: 3x
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Dimage X: The tiny digicamera that I wished could do more!
Pros
Tiny camera, 3x Optical, 2 MegaPixel, wonder in photographic engineering
Cons
Weak Flash, HoHum Optics, Decent Battery Life, Lack Features vs. competition
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Want the Ultimate in portability, this is it! However, if you want high quality photos and more features... look at the Canon S200.
I should stop walking into electronics stores... I just have too big a tendency to buy stuff :)
Actually, I found this tiny cute thing at CostCo. I couldn't believe how small this camera was... I know that I read about it but I didn't believe that it could be that much smaller than the Canon PowerShot S110/S200 Digital Elph cameras. I snatched one up and paid a not too pricey $330 + tax at the time. Too bad it didn't exceed my S200 (well, S330 now... if you read those two reviews of mine) and was sent back to CostCo land.
The Short Take
The Dimage X is Minolta's first entry into the ultracompact digital camera market that seems to be ruled by Canon fabulous models. The first thing to note about the Dimage X is the size... it is tiny! Smaller than even the Canon PowerShot S200... especially after placing the units side by side!
Like the Canon S200, the Dimage X is a 2 MegaPixel camera but sports a 3x Optical Zoom instead of a 2x Optical Zoom on the S200. To help with its size, the camera uses Secure Digital and Multimedia Cards as well as a tiny Lithium Ion battery. The Dimage X also uses a prism to help bend the image toward several filters into the capturing CCD. This technique of capturing images also helps with the diminutive size of the Dimage X.
The major weaknesses include a weak flash, short battery life, a lack of features versus other digital cameras in this price range, and a slightly worse picture versus comparably priced units in the market.
All in all, the Dimage X is a decent digital camera for everyday anywhere photography... just don't expect too much from it.
Pros:
1) Ultra Compact Size
2) 2 MegaPixel Camera
3) 3x Optical Zoom, 2.5x Digital Zoom
4) Secure Digital/MultiMedia Card media
5) Very limited Movie Mode
6) SIZE (yes again!)
Cons:
1) Only 2 MegaPixel Camera
2) Weak Flash
3) Weak Battery Life
4) Secure Digital Cards are expensive versus other media types
5) MultiMedia Cards are much cheaper but also very slow!
6) Prism system seemed to have altered captured image quality... at best, makes acceptable 5x7 prints.
Detail Time
The Dimage X has dimensions of 3.3 x 2.8 x 0.8 inches and weighs 5.5 oz. The numbers don't seem that far off the Canon S200... The X is quite a bit taller (0.6 inches) but 1/4 thinner (0.3 inch difference). The 1.1 oz. weight difference is quite noticable as well!
The best way to describe the Dimage X is urmm.... uh....
It looks like a gift box for a wallet. The camera is quite plain looking overall with an overall brushed aluminum finish. The camera quite easily fits into a shirt pocket so you can always have the camera with you and is easy to operate with one hand. This plain fronted camera also produces a slight bit of difficulty with hand grips.
The front of the camera holds the flash, lens window, optical viewfinder window, and self-timer lamp. When the camera is off, a lens cover automatically slides into place to protect the lens. On the right of the Dimage X (looking at the back of camera), you have the cover for the battery slot and SD/MMC slot as well as the DC power jack. The left side only has the A/V out jack covered by a piece of rubber. The top of the camera has the shutter button, the power button, and the microphone holes. The bottom of the camera has only an off-center tripod mount.
The back of the camera has a nice 1.5 inch color LCD screen, a slide switch to pick the camera mode, 4 buttons below the LCD screen representing Display, Flash, Menu, and OK. One the back aligned behind the shutter button are three buttons that serve various purposes like zoom and wideangle, menu navigation, and other options. Oh yeah, there are speaker holes on the bottom right part of the camera back.
Operating
This camera was made to be a point-and-shoot camera. Aim and press the shutter button... instant image. The camera turns on and off quicker than the Canon S110/S200 Digital ELPH cameras. One of the biggest differences from the Canon S200 and S330 cameras is the Dimage X's lack of features. There are very few manual settings for the camera... then again, that makes the camera less complicated to operate... at least there is less to think about.
The camera has three modes... Play and record photo and record movie (the sliding switch has only two settings... play and record. The rest is set up through the menu system.). There aren't alot of options in each of these modes. The flash are several settings that include Auto, Red-Eye reduction, Forced, Supressed, and Slow Sync. In record mode, you also pick whether you want Single, Continuous, Self-Timer, Movie, and Audio Record. There are also multiple settings for the white balance that include Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, and Flourescent. There are 3 levels of resolution/image size that include 1600x1200, 1280x960, and 640x480. 4 compression modes are available... Super Fine, Fine, Standard, and Economy. You can add voice memos to any shot. Movie mode gives you 320x240 resolution with audio for a total of 35 seconds of video record time. Pure audio record time is up to 90 seconds long (Yes, you can record audio notes without it being associated with a picture!).
Pictures
The pictures are good overall. There is overall good color reproduction and good detail retention in the photos. The photos are suitable for up to 5x7 prints but 8x10s would be a longshot. The details are not quite as sharp as the Canon S200 and S330 cameras. This is likely due to the prism system that the Dimage X uses to capture photos. It seemed that the camera worked at its best under sunlit conditions.
Night photos and dim lighting conditions fared worse with the weak flash on the Dimage X. Using the flash also switched the camera into ISO 200, which resulted in grainier photos and less detail perservation (especially when you blow the pictures up).
Batteries
The unit uses a specialized Minolta Lithium-Ion battery to keep the Dimage X small but the battery life in turn suffers. The camera lasts somewhere between 150-180 shots per fully charged battery. Better buy another battery for those long photo shoots. I haven't even looked for this battery yet, so I don't know the price.
Wadda you get in the package then?
In additional to the camera, you also get:
a wrist strap (and use it since this camera lacks any real hand grips!)
video out cable
USB cable
8MB Secure Digital (SD) Card
NP-200 Lithium-Ion battery pack
Battery charger
Dimage software on CD
Owners manual (a decent one at that too)
But you should buy:
A bigger Secure Digital (SD) Card (you can buy the cheaper MultiMedia Card (MMC)... but read the next section about the difference first).
Second NP-200 Lithium-Ion Battery Pack
AC adapter (optional choice)
SD versus MMC
Like the majority of flash media types out there, the current limit on SD and MMC cards reach 128MB... although Panasonic and SanDisk have announced 256MB versions of the SD card soon. Only Compact Flash goes beyond 128MB (Up to 1 GB) and IBM's Microdrive has even larger capacity.
Since you're stuck with either Secure Digital (SD) and MultiMedia Cards (MMC), why is there such a huge price difference between them? A 128MB MMC card is only $60-70 while a 128MB SD card easily runs $80-$120! Those of you with devices that use SD cards (like Palms) may already know the answer.
The SD cards have a copyright encoding built into the card as well as faster access times. Now the copyright protection only affects music devices but it does decrease the amount of useable storage from 128MB to 120MB. The SD cards can be written to and read from much faster than a MMC. The difference in read/write speeds is painfully apparent on the Dimage X. A picture taken on the highest image quality settings (1600x1200 at Super-Fine compression) requires about a minute to store to a MMC card after you press the shutter button. With the SD card, you are usually taking your 3rd or 4th shot a minute from taking that first shot. Even viewing images is slow... there is a noticable difference when viewing for a SD card from a MMC card.
Although the price difference can be large, the SD card is a much better value than the MMC card. Waiting a minute between shots is ridiculous!
You want more details? Check out these additional sites.
www.imaging-resource.com
www.dpreview.com
Both sites have opposite viewpoints on this particular camera... I found both reviews here extremely informative without either being overly technical.
Fate of the Camera and Final Thoughts
Well, I value image quality more than anything else so I returned the Dimage X and stuck to the Canon S330 (if you read my reviews on the S200 and S330, you'll know why I have the S330 instead of the S200 now). The Dimage X image quality is good but is still slightly inferior to the current Canon Digital ELPH cameras... I like making 8x10 photos so the S200/S330 does a much better job for this purpose.
However, the Dimage X takes the crown on most portable camera around. There is nothing that is as small and capable of 2 MegaPixel images on the market. The camera is also very easy to use since it does not have alot of features. This camera is considerable lighter than the S200... it may be an only an ounce but you will difinitely notice the difference from the Canon S200. The image quality is very good for 4x6 and 5x7 shots. However, if you're looking for more than a point-and-shoot camera, you're better off with another digital camera (like the Canon S200 which will sacrifice very little portability from the Dimage X).
I would still recommend the Dimage X for the casual photo taker although my personal preference would be for the Canon S200/S330 Digital ELPHs for the higher detail retention and more robust feature sets.
Actually, I found this tiny cute thing at CostCo. I couldn't believe how small this camera was... I know that I read about it but I didn't believe that it could be that much smaller than the Canon PowerShot S110/S200 Digital Elph cameras. I snatched one up and paid a not too pricey $330 + tax at the time. Too bad it didn't exceed my S200 (well, S330 now... if you read those two reviews of mine) and was sent back to CostCo land.
The Short Take
The Dimage X is Minolta's first entry into the ultracompact digital camera market that seems to be ruled by Canon fabulous models. The first thing to note about the Dimage X is the size... it is tiny! Smaller than even the Canon PowerShot S200... especially after placing the units side by side!
Like the Canon S200, the Dimage X is a 2 MegaPixel camera but sports a 3x Optical Zoom instead of a 2x Optical Zoom on the S200. To help with its size, the camera uses Secure Digital and Multimedia Cards as well as a tiny Lithium Ion battery. The Dimage X also uses a prism to help bend the image toward several filters into the capturing CCD. This technique of capturing images also helps with the diminutive size of the Dimage X.
The major weaknesses include a weak flash, short battery life, a lack of features versus other digital cameras in this price range, and a slightly worse picture versus comparably priced units in the market.
All in all, the Dimage X is a decent digital camera for everyday anywhere photography... just don't expect too much from it.
Pros:
1) Ultra Compact Size
2) 2 MegaPixel Camera
3) 3x Optical Zoom, 2.5x Digital Zoom
4) Secure Digital/MultiMedia Card media
5) Very limited Movie Mode
6) SIZE (yes again!)
Cons:
1) Only 2 MegaPixel Camera
2) Weak Flash
3) Weak Battery Life
4) Secure Digital Cards are expensive versus other media types
5) MultiMedia Cards are much cheaper but also very slow!
6) Prism system seemed to have altered captured image quality... at best, makes acceptable 5x7 prints.
Detail Time
The Dimage X has dimensions of 3.3 x 2.8 x 0.8 inches and weighs 5.5 oz. The numbers don't seem that far off the Canon S200... The X is quite a bit taller (0.6 inches) but 1/4 thinner (0.3 inch difference). The 1.1 oz. weight difference is quite noticable as well!
The best way to describe the Dimage X is urmm.... uh....
It looks like a gift box for a wallet. The camera is quite plain looking overall with an overall brushed aluminum finish. The camera quite easily fits into a shirt pocket so you can always have the camera with you and is easy to operate with one hand. This plain fronted camera also produces a slight bit of difficulty with hand grips.
The front of the camera holds the flash, lens window, optical viewfinder window, and self-timer lamp. When the camera is off, a lens cover automatically slides into place to protect the lens. On the right of the Dimage X (looking at the back of camera), you have the cover for the battery slot and SD/MMC slot as well as the DC power jack. The left side only has the A/V out jack covered by a piece of rubber. The top of the camera has the shutter button, the power button, and the microphone holes. The bottom of the camera has only an off-center tripod mount.
The back of the camera has a nice 1.5 inch color LCD screen, a slide switch to pick the camera mode, 4 buttons below the LCD screen representing Display, Flash, Menu, and OK. One the back aligned behind the shutter button are three buttons that serve various purposes like zoom and wideangle, menu navigation, and other options. Oh yeah, there are speaker holes on the bottom right part of the camera back.
Operating
This camera was made to be a point-and-shoot camera. Aim and press the shutter button... instant image. The camera turns on and off quicker than the Canon S110/S200 Digital ELPH cameras. One of the biggest differences from the Canon S200 and S330 cameras is the Dimage X's lack of features. There are very few manual settings for the camera... then again, that makes the camera less complicated to operate... at least there is less to think about.
The camera has three modes... Play and record photo and record movie (the sliding switch has only two settings... play and record. The rest is set up through the menu system.). There aren't alot of options in each of these modes. The flash are several settings that include Auto, Red-Eye reduction, Forced, Supressed, and Slow Sync. In record mode, you also pick whether you want Single, Continuous, Self-Timer, Movie, and Audio Record. There are also multiple settings for the white balance that include Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, and Flourescent. There are 3 levels of resolution/image size that include 1600x1200, 1280x960, and 640x480. 4 compression modes are available... Super Fine, Fine, Standard, and Economy. You can add voice memos to any shot. Movie mode gives you 320x240 resolution with audio for a total of 35 seconds of video record time. Pure audio record time is up to 90 seconds long (Yes, you can record audio notes without it being associated with a picture!).
Pictures
The pictures are good overall. There is overall good color reproduction and good detail retention in the photos. The photos are suitable for up to 5x7 prints but 8x10s would be a longshot. The details are not quite as sharp as the Canon S200 and S330 cameras. This is likely due to the prism system that the Dimage X uses to capture photos. It seemed that the camera worked at its best under sunlit conditions.
Night photos and dim lighting conditions fared worse with the weak flash on the Dimage X. Using the flash also switched the camera into ISO 200, which resulted in grainier photos and less detail perservation (especially when you blow the pictures up).
Batteries
The unit uses a specialized Minolta Lithium-Ion battery to keep the Dimage X small but the battery life in turn suffers. The camera lasts somewhere between 150-180 shots per fully charged battery. Better buy another battery for those long photo shoots. I haven't even looked for this battery yet, so I don't know the price.
Wadda you get in the package then?
In additional to the camera, you also get:
a wrist strap (and use it since this camera lacks any real hand grips!)
video out cable
USB cable
8MB Secure Digital (SD) Card
NP-200 Lithium-Ion battery pack
Battery charger
Dimage software on CD
Owners manual (a decent one at that too)
But you should buy:
A bigger Secure Digital (SD) Card (you can buy the cheaper MultiMedia Card (MMC)... but read the next section about the difference first).
Second NP-200 Lithium-Ion Battery Pack
AC adapter (optional choice)
SD versus MMC
Like the majority of flash media types out there, the current limit on SD and MMC cards reach 128MB... although Panasonic and SanDisk have announced 256MB versions of the SD card soon. Only Compact Flash goes beyond 128MB (Up to 1 GB) and IBM's Microdrive has even larger capacity.
Since you're stuck with either Secure Digital (SD) and MultiMedia Cards (MMC), why is there such a huge price difference between them? A 128MB MMC card is only $60-70 while a 128MB SD card easily runs $80-$120! Those of you with devices that use SD cards (like Palms) may already know the answer.
The SD cards have a copyright encoding built into the card as well as faster access times. Now the copyright protection only affects music devices but it does decrease the amount of useable storage from 128MB to 120MB. The SD cards can be written to and read from much faster than a MMC. The difference in read/write speeds is painfully apparent on the Dimage X. A picture taken on the highest image quality settings (1600x1200 at Super-Fine compression) requires about a minute to store to a MMC card after you press the shutter button. With the SD card, you are usually taking your 3rd or 4th shot a minute from taking that first shot. Even viewing images is slow... there is a noticable difference when viewing for a SD card from a MMC card.
Although the price difference can be large, the SD card is a much better value than the MMC card. Waiting a minute between shots is ridiculous!
You want more details? Check out these additional sites.
www.imaging-resource.com
www.dpreview.com
Both sites have opposite viewpoints on this particular camera... I found both reviews here extremely informative without either being overly technical.
Fate of the Camera and Final Thoughts
Well, I value image quality more than anything else so I returned the Dimage X and stuck to the Canon S330 (if you read my reviews on the S200 and S330, you'll know why I have the S330 instead of the S200 now). The Dimage X image quality is good but is still slightly inferior to the current Canon Digital ELPH cameras... I like making 8x10 photos so the S200/S330 does a much better job for this purpose.
However, the Dimage X takes the crown on most portable camera around. There is nothing that is as small and capable of 2 MegaPixel images on the market. The camera is also very easy to use since it does not have alot of features. This camera is considerable lighter than the S200... it may be an only an ounce but you will difinitely notice the difference from the Canon S200. The image quality is very good for 4x6 and 5x7 shots. However, if you're looking for more than a point-and-shoot camera, you're better off with another digital camera (like the Canon S200 which will sacrifice very little portability from the Dimage X).
I would still recommend the Dimage X for the casual photo taker although my personal preference would be for the Canon S200/S330 Digital ELPHs for the higher detail retention and more robust feature sets.
