X500 Silver

There are two Minolta's X500's.

This is the Silver one which is more common and in some respects looks more obviously early 80's than it's all black cousin.
No: 60330174

The above is the original 1983 brochure introducing it with the black version shown coupled to the motordrive, a fast winder popular with professional and advanced amateurs into wildlife or sports photography.

In  coy way  the brochure  spells out just what makes it the better bet for advanced amateurs and professionals than the X700, the top end model of the X series without drawing out the comparison relying on magazine reviews and users to it spell it out.

Having used both, I much prefer the X500 in the field while when it comes to accessories the two cameras use the same as you can use it without having to remove your eye from the viewfinder.

The loss of the Program mode is no great loss as it is a general all purpose program mode rather than having program shifts or preset modes dedicated more to sports and so on that were to become more common place in the late 80's and beyond and there's no need to have a exposure compensation dial to apply compensation, given you have metered manual to set one, a exposure lock to take and fix a substitute reading and in the final event, there's also just resetting the film speed to cause the exposure given to differ.