digital camera, which is best?

[gangt]

Minolta dimage z1 or Canon A70, which is best?
Apart from these 2 which other cameras do you recommend? I'm looking for a 3mp camera. I don't want to care about price now. It must be manually controllable as well. Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[BigSmooth]

The Z1 has 10x zoom and the A70 is only 3x. Is a big zoom important to you?

 

[gangt]

Big zoom is not important but the pictures should be good. I noticed Minolta z1's pictures are little darker than that of A70s. But when taken in dark without flash minolta worked great.
Also, is there any difference in pic quality with lens' size. In minolta the lens is large. I'm wondering if large lens would cover more area when taking close up shots than the smaller lens of A70, is that true?