Faulty SP-550uz?

Hello all, this is my first post.

I got my new SP-550uz a few days ago. I've been learning about all the the settings and haven't been examining the photos too carefully this far. Most of the pics look just ok when shrinked to the screen for normal viewing. However, I did have a growing feeling, that something is wrong, photos are not sharp looking. Then I started to check, and I haven't really got a single sharp photo so far, except macros.

So I made a simple test. I put my old Canon A80 and the new 550 on a tripod, and took photos with full auto mode from the same place. The room was dimly lit, and flash was fired by both cameras. (wide angle, distance about 1m) Here are 100% crops of the target:

SP-550uz

Canon A80

I also tried manually all the metering and AF modes, but could not get any better photo with 550.

Did I get a faulty unit? Should I return this right away? Should I do some other tests? Am I doing something wrong?