Nintendo DSi £100 (estimated), www.nintendo.co.uk WHAT IS IT?The next version of Nintendo’s popular DS hand-held gaming console. After months of rumours, details have finally been confirmed about this update. The DSi will be only marginally trimmer than the existing model but will boast two slightly larger screens. It will also feature two cameras, where the current DS has none. One is a decent snapper, the second is a low-res webcam. It will have built-in memory to store downloadable games, pictures or music, whereas the present DS can store only music and needs an accessory to do so. The DSi forgoes Nintendo’s proprietory GameBoy Advance (GBA) slot in favour of a more useful SD memory-card slot. This will make it easier to play songs or view snaps, but the trade-off is that the DSi will no longer play GBA titles. It goes on sale in Japan from December, and in the UK from next spring. SHOULD I BUY ONE?The promise of a processor that’s “twice the speed” of the DS, along with beefed-up sound, is appealing. Only the reckless would buy a DS now, unless, of course, it was going for a song.

Planon Printstik PS910 £210, www.scanningpens.co.uk WHAT IS IT?At just 11in in width the market’s smallest wireless A4 printer is only a little wider than the paper itself. The choice of mains or battery power, a weight of 1lb 8oz, and the included rigid carry-case mean it is truly portable. It’s a “direct thermal” printer – the technology used in fax machines – so it uses the same crinkly, lightweight paper, and your black-and-white print-outs emerge dry to the touch, albeit a little curly. The internal paper roll is long enough for 20 A4 pages, and the rechargeable battery is good for 30. Replacement rolls cost £9.99 for three. Connected over USB to a laptop, a sheet of text took just 20 seconds to print, with the kind of quality you’d expect from a fax machine. Images took an age to emerge, however – at the top resolution of 200x400dpi, an A4 photograph required 10 minutes to output. Wireless Bluetooth connections proved less easy to set up, and this wasn’t helped by the absence of a manual on the accompanying disk. One phone refused to pair with the printer, but a Bluetooth-equipped laptop linked without fuss. SHOULD I BUY ONE?The Printstik feels solid and sturdy, and is small enough to stash in a road warrior’s laptop bag. But setting it up to print those first-quarter sales figures from a Bluetooth phone or PDA could end up being a lot more hassle than it’s worth.

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