As it happens, these were my two first rangefinders (well, the 7s and a Mir, which is a Zorki-4 without the slow speeds). Both are good, but they're very different cameras in use.
The Zorki has the virtue of interchangeable lenses, the clumsiness of knob wind and rewind, usually seems to come with a Sonnar clone that can be quite good but doesn't make anybody's "best lenses in the known world" list, has the ineffable smell of a Soviet rangefinder[1], has no auto-anything, and might break in interesting ways. I've seen the word "agricultural" used to describe its mechanics.
The Minolta is really at home in auto mode, a bit fiddly to use the manual settings on, has an extremely bright viewfinder but a focussing ring that I always found a little awkward, meters *extremely* well even in low light, has a dead-sharp lens that can be a little "clinical" (nice color rendition though), has a certain "mushiness" in the controls that's hard to explain, and doesn't smell like anything. My first one experienced an electronic sudden death without warning, costing me what I believe to have been a really nice roll of slides---however, it had served me well enough that I went out and got another (which I believe is still in use in the hands of the friend to whom I eventually gave it).
The 7s was a *great* travel camera, which is mostly what I used it for when I was travelling a lot for work. In a lot of ways it was less "involving" to use than the Mir is, though---it's a really good automatic transmission, whereas the Mir is a somewhat cranky stick shift.
-NT
[1] I once walked into a Ukrainian cow-orker's office carrying my Mir in its leather case; he immediately grabbed it and buried his nose in it, then explained that for him it was the smell of childhood. I can see how that distinctive smell, once learned, would never leave you.
