P7700 froze up while taking pictures!

Hi, i'm new here and also new to Nikon and the P7700.  After much indecision between the Canon G15 and the P7700 I decided to give the P7700 a try.  I've not been super impressed with my pictures so far but i'm sure that's mostly due to my picture taking and not the camera, I've only had it for a couple of days.  I come from a long line of pany cameras.

While out taking my practice pictures this morning the camera totally froze up on me The only way i got it to work again was to remove the battery, which i'm sure wasn't good for it.  Has anyone else had this happen.  I was turning the camera to get a vertical picture, first with the flash up then with the flash down, it was at that point it quit working.  Instructions say to have flash up?  Screen goes black so hard to see what you're taking.  Is that normal?

Thanks for any input or suggestions.