Poor Contrast/Brightness??? Anyone else?

I recently bought the C340 camera and was expecting a bit more than what i got. Basically everything seems to be generally fine except for two things.

1) As others have noted the camera is very picky about the batteries that you use. Funnily enough i bought a pack of four Kodak batteries which would not even turn the camera on!!! Putting them into a gameboy they work without any problems (perhaps even producing the brightest LED ever :o ).
2) The image brighness always seems to be very low, ie. producing dark pictures. This is even under normal in-door daytime household use. This is the second Kodak camera that i purchased that produces the same dark images. Is ANYONE else getting the same??? I'd like to know before my return period runs out.