Let the hive mind of Engadget get that for you.
"We need a digital camera that can be switched on and fire off that first shot fast. It's not a commonly tracked statistic on any review site, and nobody seems to have this information for every camera. We were hoping other readers could inform us as to what small digital cameras can fire off their first pics in under a second (ideally under half a second). It needs to be small, but mostly, just really quick in operation. Thanks!"
sorry, i know i'm going to catch a lot of flak for this, but i'm sad to see such tacky crap come out of east asia in general, imitating western trends. i know we make enough tacky crap ourselves stateside, but i wish the chinese would take a little more pride in their rich history. maybe it's just because i know more chinese youths than elderly, but sorta like the american youth, they are completely lost in the sea of material goods that commercial purveyors want them to want.
i know this is a very strong generalization, but i have to say it. i think it's sad to see the effects of western cultural and economic hegemony on other cultures. the one small difference between our crap and theirs is we tend to incorporate small facets of our culture in our products, whereas (as i see it,) the consumer-oriented machine in (specifically east asia) seems to have no grounding in anything but glitz, and trying to one-up the next guy in the aspects we are told are desirable by those who sell their wares.