Although happy with the grip and the first photos, I am disappointed not to be able to manually adjust the shutter speed (as opposed to the opening, which itself can be adjusted). Nikon via their friendly customer service, told me that, for compact, only the P series allow.
The different modes that can be chosen will of course do most of the work, but it happened to me with my old camera to make myself these settings.
I remain convinced that the Nikon Coolpix S9500 is still a good buy, but those who want this functionality may eg fall back on the successor to the Panasonic DMC-TZ30 on (the negative reviews about the newest DMC-TZ40 are many!) .