Is the shutter speed on the Nikon D3100 slow?

I'm getting a DSLR camera. But in Best buy it seemed like the shutter speed for the Nikon D3100 was so slow compared to the other cameras, but who knows maybe the camera was dieing, let me know if anyone has any reviews!

Shutter speed depends on the lighting. The Best Buy you went to probably was not well lit, and I'm assuming you shot some samples photos in auto mode.

To understand shutter speed a little more, you need to be educated on the general topic of exposure:

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/...posure.htm

Don't know the specs on that particular model, but all dslrs have a variabile shutter from bulb up to well over 1/1000th of a sec. You may have been testing one that had the shutter speed set at somthing low, say a 60th of a sec.

Not slow at all. It goes to 1/4000 of a second.

Shutter speed on dSLR's is manually adjusted.
1/4000th of a second, is not too slow I suppose.

Go outside (daylight), set the dial to A. Set the aperture to the smallest number possible your camera can make. Set ISO to 400 or 200. If you don't know how to do it, consult the user's manual.

Aim your camera far and check the shutter speed.

If you are shooting at 30fps with a shutter speed of 30, each frame is exposed 1/30 second, with a shutter speed of 60 1/60 of a second etc.
A rule of thumb in general filming is, to shoot with double the shutter speed, than your framerate.

The lower the shutter speed, the higher the motion blur and vice versa.