Hi. Hope all is well.
First of all, congratulations on the DSC-HX9V. It is one of the most appealing cameras to have in your pocket!
Now the biggest thing with most products is getting to grips with every feature or having the skill to use it to its full potential. What makes it difficult is without making the manuals insanely huge, a comprimise is usually put in place to give you hints and tips wherever possible but generally leaves it up to the user to learn their product properly. It has been like that for a long while and coming from a background from brands like Canon, Nikon, Pentax and Samsung, it is not much different with them.
Some do give you a pocket guide which is just a break down on the different modes which in theory your user manual should do to. As for finding videos on everything, there are how to videos slowly being made by members of Sony staff for everyone and I can assume will cover a variety of products.
Best thing if you have an account, subsribe to http://www.youtube.com/user/SonyHowTo so can browse through their videos or even drop them a message to request anything. I am not 100% they could document everything but the videos could give you some insight.
Either way, to start, I will jump in with some help for you.
The GPS. In all honesty, the module is pretty tiny. Any larger and the size of the product would increase and as a result, it is a lot less receptive when you compare to a sat nav for example so does require a bit longer than expected to aquire a signal. What I tend to find is making it easy to gain a signal quicker is switching it on in an open location. Large buildings are the main cause why GPS devices do not function correctly. Secondly what you do have if using a Windows based computer is something called GPS Assist via the Picture Motion Browser (PMB) program. It helps kick start the GPS by using your currently location and feeds it to your camera.
Now on to the flash. I am not sure if I share the same mentality as the designers on this one but using a flash ruins photos when used all the time. Especially when firing straight forward, it tends to wash out the colour from photos making them not as vibrant and playful as they could be. What Intelligent auto does is detect when it will be required normally when it is too dark and the shutter speeds will result in blurry photos. Intelligent Auto is exactly as describe, it decides what would be best so all you need to do is press the button. You can force the flash off but not force it to be constantly be used.
Sorry for the essay but hope it gives you some insight. Any more info or questions, fire away.
