Today I managed to get my hands on a Minolta Dimage Z1, which I suspect must the only model in my area of the country at the moment! I've already tried virtually every other camera shop before finding one at Jessops in Darlington and even they only had one of them.
I spent half an hour tinkering with it running through all of it's features and comparing it with the Olympus C740. I asked for the C730 but they had none in stock. They had C720's, C740's and C750's.
IMHO compared to the C740 the Minolta had the better handling. I liked it's fast almost instant power up, it's fast speed of operation and the ease of use of it's three menu pages which each had a page to itself rather than having to scroll down through pages. It was also altogether faster in operation and locking onto focus. I could come to live wih the unusual quirky design but I'm not so sure about it's smallness in the hand. The Olympus C2100UZ is just a nice size for me to grab hold of with fingers automatically in the right places. The layout of the Z1 was very similar apart from the rear of the camera being that much smaller, though the C740 was pretty compact too. The LCD screen was a bit on the small size but very crisp. The viewfinder, electronic like the Uzi was bright and clear. Manual focus was about the same as the Uzi, no better nor worse. I think the Uzi still has the edge through it's IS, but on the whole the Minolta looked a better layout and even easier operation. For me it would mean having to buy XD media, in addition to the SM and CF that I already have, but at least it takes the right batteries, AA's. Unfortunately the shop couldn't answer my query about the addition of tele-lenses - in fact I knew more about the Z1 and the C700 series than what the assistant did. I even had to work out how to switch it on for myself
Nor did the handbook give any info. I could see that the barrel had a threaded section which looks as if it could be either 46mm or 49mm but I think I'll have to try the Minolta website before deciding which I'd buy. Of course I couldn't actually see any photo results on the computer, but that does seem to be the way of things nowadays for all camera purchases.
Overall I have to say that if my Uzi packs in tomorrow than I'd probably plum for the Z1 as it's almost too good to be true for it to be that well specified for that price. They can be got for around £280 over here though at Jessops they were £330, but they do price matching with competitors. Dixons had them on their books for £290, but none in stock and none expected.
It's a shame it doesn't have 5mp even for a little dearer price - some people are never satisfied!