photo finished

I need a new camera. For the last few years, I have had to contend with what may well be the shittiest digital camera known to man. It's a Canon Powershot A200 - or something like that. It's slow as all hell, takes crappy pictures, sucks up battery life so severely that even other batteries not in the actual camera seem to die just because they're sort of nearby. The battery door also broke off ages ago. I can't even say how much I utterly despise this camera. And what peeves me most of all is the fact that because of how much I hate it, I have barely taken any pictures since I've owned it. That means that Opaw's younger years, and trips to Brazil and Argentina and Spain and London, and my nephews and niece, and my cutie boyfriend, all are pathetically underrepresented in the world of photos.

So I'm trying to decide what to get and doing any sort of research is making my head explode. I don't fucking know. I don't need the greatest camera in the world. I'm not going to pay megabucks for a SLR. I just need something that is reasonably fast (like faster that a billion years to take one freakin picture!), takes decent photos of normal size (I can't imagine wanting something bigger than 5X7), and is really small so I'll actually carry it around and take pictures. Is that too much to ask?

Any suggestions? I looked at the Canon Elph of course, but my previous experience with Canon makes me a little wary. I've seen good reviews of the Kodak Easyshare V530. Anything else I should consider?