The DiMAGE S304 was announced at the same time as the DiMAGE 5 and 7 at PMA on 11th February this year. The S304 has a 3.3 megapixel CCD (3.14 effective - 2048 x 1536) and a 4x optical zoom lens. It shares much of its functionality and features with it's "bigger brothers" the DiMAGE 5 and 7.

The S304 is part of the new range of Minolta DiMAGE digital cameras, it marks a definite advance in features and resolution for the compact end of the Minolta range. The S304 is one of only two three megapixel digital cameras with a 4x optical zoom lens, the other of course being the Nikon Coolpix 995 and it will therefore be our benchmark for comparison in this review.

This review is based on a pre-production S304, we hope to update the review with results from a production camera as soon as one is made available.