Works great with NIMH batteries

I've had a Powershot A300 since a little more than 2 years ago, and although I have faced some problems, I also think the overall quality for the price of the camera (and compared to another 3 megapixels cameras) is fairly good.

I would like to address the battery problem: If you're using alkaline batteries, they're going to last only a few minutes. With a completeley new set of alkaline batteries, I coudln't use it for more than 20 minutes and the batteries went dead, and when taking movies, it only gets worse. Well, that's because none should be using a digital camera with alkaline batteries unless in an emergency. Get yourself a decent pack of rechargeable NIMH batteries. They're cheap, they charge fairly quick and they last about 4 times or more the time of a alkaline batteries.

The problems I've found with the camera, are, yes, the shutter lag, and the issue that many pictures seem perfectly focused in the little screen, but once in the computer screen they look blurry. This is a camera that doesn't handle low light well, unless you put it in a tripod or fixed surface. The colors, and image are good, even at night, but if you move just one little bit when taking the picture, it will come out kind of blurry. I use it in iso 400 must of the time, unless in broad daylight.