Here's the review for your camera from my fav site for looking up cameras.
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2005_...s/hp_r817.html

I like that site because it does a good job with showing pix of the menus, and once showed me a trick for one of my cameras that was NOT in my manual!

From what I'm reading there your camera is something cross between my A40 & S3 with more features built in for novice photographers that email pix alot. Not quite as user friendly for menu access as my Canon's but not the worst I've seen by far.

The 'shutter time' you're refering to is called 'shutter lag', it's a common thing with any point and shoot digital camera, some are better than others, but they all have it. DSLR/SLR do not have shutter lag (one of the other perks of a very high price tag).

The trick to dealing with shutter lag (and my A40 has a horrendous one) is to use the pre-focus (shutter button pushed halfway and hold it), wait for the action, then push the shutter button gently all the way down just BEFORE when you want to stop the action, taking alot of shots also helps. After awhile you'll get better at timing the shots to catch the moment you want. According to the site for yoru camra "Shutter lag (time from pressing the shutter release to actually capturing the image) was less than 1/10 of a second when pre-focused" That's not too bad for a P&S camera really.

Pushing your menu button (big round button on the back) will let you scroll through the different settings your camera has available. This will let you change your ISO speed, white balance, set your image quality etc.

Your camera also has a built in Macro mode focusing down to 4.7 inches. That is great for shooting close ups of flowers, bugs etc. Just be sure you're not blocking your own light, I've done that too many times myself. lol

Overall your camera isn't a bad one, it just depends on what you want to do with it whether it suits your needs or not. Best I can tell from reading the detailed review is your camera is more than capable of taking excellent pictures that you could even enlarge past 8x10 size.