Approx. dates of manufacture: 1999
Lens Mount: Minolta A
Batteries: two CR2
Approx. original price: $209.95 (body only)
Approx. street value: Very Low
This is also known as the Minolta Dynax 303si and the α-360si in other parts of the world.
I believe this is the fourth-generation of the Minolta Maxxum line. Nice camera, tops out 1/2000th and syncs at 1/90th. Built-in, pop-up flash. It was the low-end, meant to compete against Canon's Rebel series for people who wanted interchangable lenses but didn't want to deal with exposure beyond picking an appropriate mode.
Like the Rebels, this was off-shored and produced in Malaysia (Rebels were made in Taiwan). I don't know whether it was at a Minolta-owned facility or whether they just bought them from another maker like Cosina and branded them Minolta.
A lot of the earlier Maxxums used the creative exposure card system to add auto-exposure modes to the camera; by the end of the 1990s the on-board computers had advanced to where they could offer a lot of these programs as standard; thus this camera includes portrait, landscape, close-up, sports, and night-portrait modes without having to buy accessories.
I was at a thrift store that normally never has cameras, but on this day they had two, this body and the Minolta 5000i, each priced at $10. That was a nice price considering they looked good, nothing appeared broken or submerged. Got to the counter and was charged $2 total. It was one of those deals where on a particular day, anything with this particular tag color was $1.
Occasionally you get fleeced; occasionally you go home with the fleece.
Camera manual: Orphan Cameras.com