Understood Franco. BUT even at widest angle (25mm) the exposure program will choose F8 @ ISO100 more often than not in normal daylight. Sometimes even F11! Meanwhile shutter speed will still be as low as 1/250sec. Brightest aperture at widest angle seems to be F2.8 at say 1/800sec ISO100 in good light. Seems F2 is only used in dim indoor light.

That would be a good indication that either the lens is not that good at F2 or simply the programmers are opting for a slightly greater depth of field to avoid out of focus images.
You will find that many compacts have a bias (on auto) towards or away from a particular aperture

I just had a look at a night time street shot taken with the Canon S110 at the widest setting on auto, the aperture was 3.5
this shot :

Edited by Franco on 10/05/2012 16:18:16 MDT.