Mixed up Confusion

Some of our younger readers might remember that not long ago I dropped my Minolta Dimage F300 camera and bust the zoom mechanism. I sent it back to Minolta for repair, but in the meantime borrowed a Canon Powershot S1, a 10x optical zoom model.

I was fairly happy with the Powershot and more or less decided I would keep it.

But things change. Minolta informed me by the telephone device that they were repairing it under warranty, which I thought was a result. So I sold on the Powershot, having decided, after all, that I couldn't live with its less-than-optimal autofocus performance. Not bad, but nowhere near as good as the Minolta, with its tracking autofocus.

So this morning, what do I get in the post? An estimate for repair from Minolta, because they discovered that the camera I had told them had been dropped had been dropped. £198! Which is slightly more than I'd have to pay for any number of brand new cameras.

So now I'm thrown, and just don't know what to do. I'm torn between going for the features and quality of a much bigger camera, like the Olympus C-8080 Wide, which has had some very good reviews; or, another compact model, like the Konica Minolta DiMAGE G600, which I guess would be a natural successor for the F300 I broke. I know that Minolta make good lenses, and I know they lead the industry in terms of startup times and focus times etc. On the other hand, it's got a 3x optical zoom (as opposed to 5 on the Olympus) and no hot shoe for flash etc.

I'm going to give the Olympus a trial; it's the one major brand I haven't tried, and they are the market leaders.

By monday I should have made my mind up.