Overall I consider this unit a good buy for the price, considering all the function is similar to Canon XT Rebel which I bought couple of days ago, and my plan is to give the S414 to my brother but after getting familiar with the Canon I feel my old S414 is not too far compared with the Canon. Like I said just take a lot of time getting to know the S414 to get a good result.

Tested my DiMAGE S414 couple of days ago and found the results quite impressive. The camera is feature packed with a lot of manual controls which gives some kind of comfort to seasoned SLR users like us. The GT Lense of S414 is really impressive and I must admit that I certainly don't miss my old Nikkor lenses. The GT optics of Minolta DiMAGE S414 is delivering crisper images.
At low light, auto focussing worked fine most of the times despite not having an AF Assist Lamp.
The minor glitch on low battery life can be managed if one has a spare set of NiMH Batteries always handy in the camera bag.

I love my S414. It takes amazing photos, has a fast shutter speed, battery life is no problem (about 2 weeks with heavy usage)- I suggest the people who are having problems are not using batteries specifically designed for digital cameras.

I keep saying, "If only I knew as much about digital cameras when I bought this camera as I did about 35mm cameras when I purchased my Minolta XG-7."

I originally purchased the Minolta Dimage S414 because of its 4M pixels. Although it takes good sharp pictures, I have since learned it has too few apertures (only f/3.0 and f/3.6)and ISO equivalents (only 64, 100, 200, and 400).

I am a member of a volunteer fire department in Wisconsin. I was taking picutes at one of our practices in April of 2004 when the temperature was in the low 30's. Much to my chagrin, the camera stopped working after about an hour. It wasn't until the next day I read the specs and discovered the temperature range of this camera is 32 degrees F to 104 degrees F. Not good in the Wisconsin winter and not good in the desert.

Overall, this would make a good camera for amatuer photographers, but I need a little more than this one has to offer.