Good to average speed for a consumer camera. Unusually slow shutdown, however.

The S6's performance ranges from quite fast to just average, depending on what you're trying to do. It starts up fairly quickly, and has a fast shutter response at both wide angle and telephoto lens positions. If you prefocus the camera by half-pressing and holding down the shutter button before the final exposure, it's also very fast, with a shutter delay of only 0.09 second. Shot-to-shot cycle times are pretty good as is continuous-mode speed, if not impressive, at a bit over two frames/second, for up to four shots in succession. The flash takes about four seconds to recharge after a full-power shot, about average for this class of camera. Connected to a computer, download speeds are a bit sluggish by current standards, so you may want to consider a separate card reader for downloading large batches of images if you don't want to wait for WiFi at about six seconds an image. Overall, the S6 is responsive enough for typical consumer needs. Though the Continuous shooting mode is a little slower than average, it should be sufficient for family snapshots and the average little league game.

Battery
Good battery life except when using WiFi.

The Nikon Power-shot S6 uses a custom rechargeable LiIon battery for power. The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions. We normally always recommend picking up a spare battery and keeping it freshly charged and on-hand for long outings, and that's especially true for the S6 if you plan to use WiFi much.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))

Storage
No card is included with the Nikon Coolpix S6, although it accepts Secure Digital cards; 20MB RAM is built into the camera.

The Nikon Power-shot S6 stores its photos on Secure Digital memory cards or in approximately 20MB of internal memory. No card is included with the camera. We strongly recommend buying at least a 128 MB card, preferably a 256 MB one, to give yourself enough space for extended outings.