Canon A300 owners

I just bought the Canon A300 digicam. I'm surprised that I only got about 10 shots with the included AA battery given the advertisement says it can run for 90 shots. My main concern is the way the camera automatically shuts off when it thinks the power is low. I used freshly-charged Energizer batteries(1850 mah) and after a few minutes the camera tells me power is low and shuts itself off. I immediately turn the camera back on and it will run for a good time before it shuts itself off again. I keep repeating this as I know there's still juice in the battery. I'm wondering if this is a defective camera or do any of you experienced the same thing. I don't know whether to bother returning the camera.

You should check the manual to see if rechargeable batteries are suitable for use with this particular model camera.

I don't know how it affects this particular model but usually using the features will greatly reduce battery life. The life expectancy given in the documentation is usually the average life, using only basic operating functions. this means that using zoom, image effects, balance, etc... will kill batteries much faster. It does seems a bit odd that this would reduce the life from 90 shots to 10 shots though.