Why all the bad reviews?

I was slightly concerned when buying this, because of a large number of reviews that mentioned grainy images, and poor color quality. After actually using this camera, and comparing the images to my last camera's images, I am left wondering if the people writing such poor reviews just didn't bother to tweak their settings. My first picture seemed a bit dull in color, but compared to my last camera, the image didn't have such a yellow tone from the indoor lighting. After exploring the settings, I quickly found the 'Vivid Color' mode, which instantly brightened the images. As for low lighting, I walked into my bedroom, and turned the lights OFF. Snapped a picture, and to my surprise, the image looked as if it had been taken with daylight in the room. My last camera had a somewhat dim image, that was lacking. My next test was to see how well the stabilization/anti-distortion worked. I held the camera, and gently shook it, while taking a picture. I didn't end up with a blurred image, only one that seemed to be slightly out of focus.

Now that I was feeling slightly relieved, I decided to really test it out, and imported the images onto my computer. I opened each in Photoshop, and sized them to 100%. This makes such a large image, that it appears to be zoomed in, and the images were just fine.

The monitor is a bit grainy looking, when viewing your images, but after they are uploaded, and being viewed in a quality editor, they are just fine. After going through the different settings on this camera, I found multiple places where someone could cause their images to be a lesser quality, if they don't understand the settings. It seems to me that the issues described by other owners, were really related to using the device improperly.

If you get this camera, and you are having problems with the quality of your images, first read the manual, and check your settings. If they seem to be set properly, call Nikon.