The point of having a mini notebook is presumably to have such a small form factor, you can tuck it away in a large pocket. But this week, Hewlett-Packard (HP) has launched the HP Mini 311, which goes the other way, fitting the largest screen on a Mini notebook.

Its main bragging rights come from the 11.6-inch diagonal HD LED Brightview Widescreen Display. Other features include having a NVIDIA ION LE graphics card to allow you to watch HD movies and Altec Lansing speakers to complete the full HD experience.

Priced at $849, the HP Mini 311 comes with either Black Swirl or White Swirl protective HP Imprint finishes.

HP Mini 311


From Brother International Singapore comes a new range of compact colour printers using LED technology.

The compact colour LED printers, HL-3040CN and HL-3070CW, are very similar in terms of specifications with the latter packed with more features. Both have built-in Ethernet for networking and print sharing while the HL-3070CW comes with an additional WIRELESS LAN plus the option to print from USB flash memory drive.

You can expect high speed printing at 16 pages per minute and rich colour print quality at up to 2,400 x 600 dpi resolution. Available in stores by mid-November.

Recommended Retails Prices

HL-3040CN – $498

HL- 3070CW – $568

HL-3040CN

HL-3070CW

All the listed products from Brother come with a 3-year on-site warranty.

Last, but not least, Sony unveiled its latest Blu-ray player, BDP-S765, for home theatre movie buffs. It features the latest cutting-edge technologies like the newly developed HD Reality Enhancer and Super Bit Mapping to deliver even sharper and more vibrant images from today’s Blu-ray disc movies.

The BDP-S765 is fully BD-Live capable through the Ethernet connection that lets users connect to the Internet to access BD-Live features and firmware updates. Another good thing is that you can always save the content downloaded from BD-Live onto a USB flash storage device connected to the external flash memory port.

This player will decode the latest advanced audio codes effortlessly and, because it has an integrated headphone jack for virtual surround, it will simulate the sound of a multi-channel home theatre setup when you put on a pair of headphones.

There’s even a front USB port for viewing photos from your USB flash memory drive or directly from a digital camera.

Well, it has a Quick Start mode that improves boot-up times to just 6 seconds. It also has Sony’s XrossMediaBar™ for easy menu navigation and Sony’s BRAVIA Sync™ for Theatre.

Did I mention that the remote control is backlit?

The BDP-S765 Blu-ray player is available at all Sony authorised retailers at a suggested retail price of $799 (inclusive of GST).