I hae owned this camera for about a year and have taken some great shots with it. It is good basic a point and shoot vacation camera.

What I like:
-Small size and solid construction, except for the on/off switch
-Good quality output/pictures for the most part
-Good battery life and multiple card options (SD and Memory stick, although I only use one)

What I don't like:
-Switch on cover that slides back and forth to both turn off and on as well as protect lense is now broken and renders the camera unusable
-Poor low light capability and performance
-Poor lcd quality and small size
-Poor movie mode that only caputes 320X240 movies
-Menus are confusing and not useful

Would I buy again? I would not buy given what I know about the camera and the other better options out there right now.

I have read in some of these other reviews about the delay in taking pictures. There seems to be an easy way around this that I have found takes away this one issue in this otherwise nearly perfect product. When you are about to take a picture simply depress the shutter button part way. Do not press it all of the way down so that it takes a picture, just part way. This will prime the camera and you will be able to take a picture instantly when you want.

I've owned this camera for about a year now and can't honestly say that it was a good purchase.

Things I like most about this camera:

It's a tank - - rock solid, great design for a pocket camera.
Reasonably fast for spontaneous picture taking.
Great for vacations or on-the-go. You'll get great pictures without the wan-a-be photographer look - lugging ten pounds of gear to Jonnie's soccer match!

Things I don't like about this camera:

Because it's so small, you'll find you have several out-of-focus shots due to camera shake/movement as you take the snapshot. You won't find out until you load them up on your computer.
Forget the action shots -- tried many times to adjust using manual mode but all I get is a lot of blur and streaking (great artistic pics however).
You will discover many menus/features as you enter setup mode but you will also need the 200 page online manual to figure them out. For practical purposes you'll use the camera in auto mode and keep it there, unless you have a lot of patience and time on your hands.

In summary:

Great pocket camera for point-n-shoot use. Good for still shots, but not for anything that moves.

Got this camera as a result of the reviews on here. As a summary of what most of them seem to say. It's great, battery life is good, picture quality is spot on. I've even used both memory formats though I didn't think I would. The two problems that seem to have been noticed by other people is red-eye and the amount of time it takes to take a photo. Though I have had red-eye in photos it's never been a problem really and I've never really seen a camera that didn't have red-eye of some sort. As for time taken between shots, I've compared it to a 3MP camera and it was faster, it's slower than my previous camera but that was only 1.4MP which I think has something to do with it.

This camera has a good number of features for the price.
The upsides include:
- easy to get started
- excellent resolution
- very easy to move pictures to computer
- cool power on/off feature
- good menu system and picture preview
- goo picture monitor (the little screen)
The bad things:
- takes too long to recharge the flash betwen photos
- takes a little too long for the camera to focus and shoot
- 16 MB card only holds about 10 pictures
- shouldn't make me remove battery to recharge

I've had for about 1.5 years, and taken thousands of pictures across the country. Love being able to "develop" immediately on my PC, delete those I don't want, and store the rest in an organized fastion.

Outdoor photos almost always turn out well (except when I don't aim well), and can make good 8.5 X 11 photos (if don't use digital magnification). Battery lasts for at least 150 shots. Only bad points are rather slow start-up and some shutter lag (can get around latter by pressing "Shoot" button half-way and waiting for shot), and inability to take good shots in large interior areas (eg. a cathedral).

I've had for about 1.5 years, and taken thousands of pictures across the country. Love being able to "develop" immediately on my PC, delete those I don't want, and store the rest in an organized fastion.

Outdoor photos almost always turn out well (except when I don't aim well), and can make good 8.5 X 11 photos (if don't use digital magnification). Battery lasts for at least 150 shots. Only bad points are rather slow start-up and some shutter lag (can get around latter by pressing "Shoot" button half-way and waiting for shot), and inability to take good shots in large interior areas (eg. a cathedral).

this thing is okay, i love the camera don't get me wrong, but it's minolta that has me scared, i used to love them, until i experienced the reliability first, and then when i had to deal with the slow and unsteady service team, it was terrible, all my other minolta products turned out to be crap. i'm not telling you which brand i switched to because they all seem to be pretty good, except minolta. if you want more details send me an email, im sure it's on my amazon profile or something.

This camera works beautifully. It is very simple to use. Close up images are clear and without glare; the red eye reduction works well, too. Nice!

I love this camera. The Minolta Diamge G500 was my first digital camera and it was used and abused. However, it still works today. The camera has more weight than most newer digital cameras but us still compact. It doesn't feel like cheap plastic. Since owning this camers I have purchased a Fuji S700 and a S3IS, none of these have ever taken the quality photos that come from my Dimage. Nor do they stand up to the durability of the Diamge. I have dropped it on an ice skating rink, cement, and it was used weekly for ebay pics. My dimage is still kicking and taking better photos than my fuji and canon. On top of all this, this camera has a very easy to use menu and can be used to just point and shoot. I know it is very functional and durable with great photos.