Acceptable, but batteries dry out very quick

I have had the camera for 18 months and have take approximately 2000 pictures.

I think the quality of the pictures is OK. Pictures taken with flash are too dark or you have to compensate with the ISO setting, which give you some distorted pictures.

The worst thing though are the battery life time. I have bought 2500 mAh Duracell rechargeable batteries. Anyway if I use the flash the batteries are gone within just a few pictures. This is really a pain, and I can see on other brands that they last for hundreds of pictures. I will not buy HP again.