My Ricoh Caplio R7 is taking blurry pictures and making a shuttering sound when focusing and zooming in.

Sorry can't help ,I contacted Ricoh and they were less than useful, so I gave up scrapped the camera ,got a new one which wasn't a Ricoh as the people who took them over have forgotten how to build cameras well.
Sorry again but good luck.

Are you sure the camera quality is not supposed to be like that? Have you gone through any of the settings on the camera or try setting the picture quality to auto?

Could be that the electrical connector on the autofocus has come off. This is a job for a repairer.

The four main causes of blurry photos are:

1. Out Of Focus
2. The subject moves while the shutter is open
3. The camera moves while the shutter is open
4. Depth Of Field is too shallow

About the battery catch, visit some technicia shop to solve it.

Hi!
That is not actually a SIM card. It is a memory card. You have to take it off from the camera and then look for a small switch on the side. You have to move it the other way around to unlock the memory card.
Let me know how that goes.
Good luck!

Sounds like the spots are on your sensor. If on the lens, it would be too out of focus to matter.

Go into the menu and find "reset"...follow the on-screen instructions.

? can find some talent

This is probably THE most common failure among digital cameras. There's a halfway chance of fixing it yourself, described here: http://camerarepair.blogspot.com/2007/12/fixing-lens-error-on-digital-camera.html

you would love to see what was the truth as link following,

http://xiaolaba.wordpress.com/2009/04/25/camera-ricoh-caplio-r7-a-real-****-lens-error-00-00-00-30-02-23/

it was a **** design by RICOH, sent your message of compliant to them. you may get free service.