This is from my GX200 review (
http://ricohgrdiary.wordpress.com/2009/02/18/ricoh-gx200-review-part-2/) but the same applies for the GRD II:
"Now you might have noticed from the pictures of the 3 GX cameras that the GX200 misses the phase detection AF found on the older models. This is not only a problem with the appearance of the camera but a big problem with the speed when focusing. Where the GX100 was very fast to focus, the GX200 is not as reliable and exhibits the same issue like the R10 and GRD II with the screen freeze. This means every time you half press the shutter button the screen (and EVF) will freeze while the camera tries to focus. This was a major problem and the biggest issue I had with the R10 and is an even bigger issue here considering that this is a camera aimed at enthusiasts. Same as the GRD II and R10, not only will the screen freeze but the camera won’t take the picture till it has focus confirmation or failed completely to focus. Again this is a major problem for me and something that needs to be fixed if possible with a firmware update.
Let me put this in perspective, you stand by a road and want to take a picture of a passing car. You see the car coming towards you, half press the shutter to focus on it, the screen freezes for a moment and when you see again if the camera has locked the focus, the car is already out of your frame. This has caused me a lot of headache and was very annoying at times although I already knew about it from the GRD II, which does not get used much exactly because of this behaviour. It is not excusable for a serious compact to exhibit this problem, not even if other cameras like the Sigma DP1 and Panasonic LX3 show the same problem when focusing. As I mentioned in my R10 review, it looks to me like it is a problem with the contrast detection AF which utilizes the sensor to focus. So not only is the GX200 slower to focus than the GX100, which has the phase detection AF, it also freezes your screen long enough for you to miss the decisive moment. The focus priority instead of shutter priority does not help either and so using AF will be a consideration for non moving objects very soon. Another problem with the AF that I noticed while doing the comparison is that if you focus on the sky, the GRD I, GX and GX100 with phase detection manage to focus on infinity where the GX200 and the other cameras without phase detection can’t and fail to focus. The strange thing is that the Panasonic LC1 and Nikon D70 have exactly the same problem to achieve focus and both use phase detection.
This is the biggest problem with the GX200 but, like on the R10, it can be worked around with by using Snap focus or using Manual Focus. This is not always a good solution however but it at least kind of makes up for this shortcoming.
The snap focus is one of the best things about Ricoh cameras since it takes advantage of the big depth of field the sensors have and pre-sets the focus to 2.5m. This means you get a sharp picture from 2.5m to almost infinity. This method also helps to eliminate the auto focus lag and together with the none existent shutter lag makes this the preferred mode for street photography. It works very well in practice, as long as you don’t require the focus to be much closer than 2m, and you can assign it to one of the Fn buttons for fast switching between normal AF and Snap."
You have to use Snap focus to get no shutter lag with the GRD II and then it works fine.