Usually a camcorder or digital camera has physical buttons to push for viewing images or menu operations. A touch panel means the buttons appear on the LCD screen and you lightly touch the screen to use the button.

Optical Zoom is a series of lenses arranged in such a way as to be adjustable to create a varying focal length.
This can enlarge a subject without loss of resolution as opposed to digital zoom that enlarges the final image causing the image to look choppy.

There are plenty of after market and universal chargers for this model. Do a Google search for "Casio Exilim EX-Z9 charger".

It is not so much the camera as the type of lens used. A wider angle lens of 10 - 20mm will show you a lot of the room and any distortions could most likely be cleaned up in Photoshop or similar program.
Use a Tripod not hand held. If you use a higher aperture to be hand held your DOF (Depth of Field) is too narrow and detail farther from the camera will not be as sharp. Using a tripod will allow longer aperture time and sharper detail.
Don't use a flash...bad shadows and hot spots will result.