Looking at the angle of the shadows, it looks like the pix were taken late in the afternoon and with the sun at your back, so that should be helping get a good picture.
Higher resolution should help, also depends on how much compression you are applying to the .jpg. You should have max resolution and minimum compression - memory cards are super cheap these days, and with .jpg's you lose info every time you process and save the image, so you need to start with as much as you can get!
One problem with ALL compact cameras it the proliferation of ever higher MP counts. This camera has 10.3 million little light sensors on a chip 6.1 mm x 4.4mm! That's SMALL! A few manufacturers (namely Fuji and Panasonic Lumix) have attempted to buck the MP trend and keep the pixel density down and the image quality up (especially in lower light), but unfortunately, the average consumer doesn't get it and the cameras don't sell, so there's no real motivation for other manufacturers to do the right thing.
There might be settings for color saturation and such that you could adjust, or maybe tweak it when it gets in the computer.
All that said, it's probably how the camera "sees" the light level and calculates the exposure. According to spreview.com, you have exposure compensation of 2 stops in 1/3 stop steps
http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/key=...20compensation
The book "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson should come with EVERY camera sold ... pick up a copy at your library and check it out - son't worry it's a short book!
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...kstorenow57-20