Recall of DiMAGE 7i, 7Hi, A1, Xi, Xt, X20, S414, F300

[XoMartel]

well, i'm very sad with my condition =\
i contacted local KM service center in surabaya, indonesia and they said they have to send it to Jakarta then Singapore which could take more than 5 months and it still not a sure proposition.

i talked directly to the service supervisor in jakarta and he has confirmed that they can't give clear solution until after april 1, 2006 when Sony handles all KM transition. he suggested that i should wait until then and contact him again about updates since if i send the camera now, he can't do much but send to singapore and singapore doens't order new parts until the transition over.

so i'm really in the shitter =\
i mentioned to him that the KM stated that they recall all cameras that has faulty ccd, and he replied that the situation in asia pacific is different. then i mentioned that i bought the camera in usa, so it should cover internationally but he won't budge.

in surabaya service center, the guy that work there doesn't even know about this information and was amazed. so i told him to go look at konicaminoltasupport.com website and he also mentioned to me to call the guy in jakarta for solution since there are already 5 dimage series that has ccd fault back from november and hasn't got fix/no news. he said that the guy in jakarta perhaps can help offering trade in with olympus product, since it has happened in the past.

during my conversation with the guy in jakarta, i mentioned about trade in and he said the program was put to cease because the management afraid there are alot of broken KM cameras on their behave (couldn't understand what he mean by that... since they are the service center anyway). But he can offer trade roll (i think that is what he meant) for equal or half level lesser, he said SP500 would be passable. since i don't know much about SP500 by that time, i asked for trade in and pay the difference for higher level product. he said that it's not sure yet and he has to appeal that request to his higher boss or something.

i got home and start searching for olympus product information and i found that SP500 is lesser level camera than my dimage a1 and even worst there is not image stabilization which the main reason i bought a1. when i get into the selling price which is around $350, i made my mind that this wouldn't be an option for me since i paid more than $800 for A1 when i first bought it. (this also made me regret that i decided on a1 instead of canon eos digitalrebel)

now the problem and possible solution is offered, i'm confused on what i should do.
should i wait for konica minolta to be repaired in uncertain amount of time?
or
appeal for higher trade in? if so what would you guys recommend? and how much should my a1 be valued?

I appologize for lengthy post, and appreciate any inputs you can give me.
Thank You,

XoMartel

[E.T]

Oly SP500UZ isn't anything else than unwide angle button zoom point&pray... doesn't even have single control dial, everything is done through menusurfing.

Ask to what they would trade it, at least someone was offered A2, also A200s seem to have been offered.
Only other camera I would see passable replacement would be Fuji S9000/S9500.

[taolang]

Just got my A1 from a service center Just like to inform everybody that what they have found out is that the Image Sensor pwb was deffective , replaced under warranty

just in case anybody experience the same problem in the future

[thisismoc]

Is there an American contact available?

[jenk]

My X20 went like this a few days ago! Pah, gonna buy a camera phone and
forget about digital cameras..

[JimC]

Sony's taken over service now. Let them fix it and be happy. :-)

Effective April 1, 2006, Sony Electronics will be providing service and repair of certain Konica-Minolta products in the United States. Sony is pleased to provide existing Konica-Minolta customers an excellent customer service experience. All terms and conditions of the Konica-Minolta products' limited warranty continue to apply.

Sony Support for Konica Minolta Cameras, Lenses and Accessories

[mikekeyw]

I finally got this back from Sony which gives a different address than I've seen elsewhere

Dear Mr. Mosher:


Thank you for your recent inquiry. The Sony repair technician will examine the camera to see if it is in fact the known CCD issue. If so, it will be repaired under warranty. If not, then a repair estimate will be sent to you. My suggestion is you register the repair here:



https://webmail.source1htmt.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://eservice.sony.com/webrma/web/index.do



Please specify that you think it is the known CCD issue and send the camera to the following address. This may be different than what the website repair form has for a "send to" location:



Sony Laredo CSC

10227 Crossroads Loop Suite G

Laredo, TX 78045

Mike

[sandchak]

The first number indicates the place of manufacture, ie, 3 is japan, 9 is Malaysia and so on, the second and third number is the month and year respectivly, ie, if its 324xxxxx it means it was made in Japan in Feb 2004... hope this helps.

Sandy

XoMartel wrote:

Thanks!
got a question tho, how can i find out when is my camera manufactured?
is there way to check?
my camera is dimage a1 and yes it's broken, showing black and sometime distored lines.
and yes i haven't gone to the nearest service center, since it's been busy holiday season and i'm not faithfully trust my local konica minolta service center.

thx in advance.

[Gardenwife]

I have a problem with my DiMAGE A1, but it doesn't appear to be the CCD issue. I wish it had been that! There's details about it in my blog entry, Camera Troubles, including an update at the bottom of the entry:
http://www.gardenwife.com/2005/09/22/camera-troubles/

I really like the A1's easy-to-access advanced settings, predictive focus, flexible focus point, etc. I rely on them and the LCD monitor heavily.

Any ideas?

[kpugh]

Just found this list when googling for "Minolta Dimage A1 problems". All of a sudden today, my camera appears to have this CCD problem. I took a good image, then the next images came out overexposed with lines. Then it reverted to good, then back to bad. Then the Viewfinder turned black with some noise lines down for some images. Then back to good.

Thanks for publicising the problem. I'll be sending my camera back with the assumption that my symptons are the recall problem. If not, I'm not sure what to do. I really like the camera. But the lack of any MinoltaKonica future concerns me.

Is there an equivalent camera out there that comes with the features I've come to really appreciate:

1.) Anti-shake
2.) Dual viewscreen
3.) 7x zoon