Timing
Since they're rarely reported on but very important to the picture-taking experience, I measure both cycle times and shutter delay times for all the cameras I review, using a test system I designed and built for the purpose. (Crystal-controlled, with a resolution of 0.001 second.) Here are the numbers I collected for the Minolta DiMAGE Z1 digicam:

NOTE: My qualitative characterizations of camera performance below (that is, "reasonably fast," "about average," etc.) are meant to be relative to other cameras of similar price and general capabilities. Thus, the same shutter lag that's "very fast" for a low-end consumer camera might be characterized as "quite slow" if I encountered it on a professional model. The comments are also intended as only a quick reference: If performance specs are critical for you, rely on the absolute numbers to compare cameras, rather than my purely qualitative comments.

Power
The Z1 uses four AA batteries for power, either alkaline or NiMH types. The Z1 offers an Auto Power Save option through the Setup menu, which lets you specify how long the camera will wait without user input before shutting itself off, with options ranging from 1 to 10 minutes. Because the Z1 uses the same LCD panel for both the rear panel and eyelevel viewfinder, using the EVF saves almost no power relative to the level consumed when using the rear panel display. As always, I suggest picking up a couple of sets of rechargeable NiMH batteries, and keeping a spare set freshly charged at all times. (See my Battery Shootout page for actual test data of high-power NiMH cells currently on the market.)

As usual, I measured the Z1's actual power consumption in various operating modes, and projected run times based on a set of 1600 mAh rechargeable NiMH batteries. (This is the standard battery capacity I've used for AA-equipped digicams since I started tracking power consumption. Modern high-capacity cells are available with true (not claimed) capacities of 2000 mAh or higher. Using such cells would boost the run times shown here by about 25%.) The results of my testing appear in the table below:

Overall, the DiMAGE Z1 shows much better than average battery life. (As witness the fact that all the times in the table above are in hours, not minutes.) I still strongly recommend purchasing two sets of high-power NiMH cells, keeping a spare set charged at all times, but the Z1 really leads the field among long-zoom digicams in terms of battery life. (As an added bonus, when the camera goes to "sleep" when left in capture mode for an extended period with no activity, the power drops almost to zero, yet the camera still wakes up and is ready to take a picture again quite quickly.)

Storage Capacity
The DiMAGE Z1 stores its images on cards, and a 16 MB card is packed with the camera. As always, I strongly recommend buying at least a 32MB card, preferably a 64MB one, to give yourself extra space for extended outings. The chart below shows how many images can be stored on the included 16MB card at each size/quality setting, and the approximate amount of image compression applied in each mode. (The more image compression that's applied, the smaller the image files, but the lower quality the photos will be.)