Product Reviews

Logitech's MX Air looks stunning. Sitting in its recharge cradle, it looks more like a piece of modern art than a computer mouse. Once out of the dock, its buttons glow a gentle shade of orange, making it quite possibly the most attractive mouse we've reviewed. Good looks aren't its only trick, though, as this rodent is designed to be used in the air as well as on the desk.

Like a Nintendo Wii Remote, the MX Air can be waved around to control what happens on the screen. It fits comfortably in the hand like a remote control, while a receiver attached to your PC via USB picks up the mouse's movements and moves the on-screen cursor accordingly. With a bit of practice, the MX Air is surprisingly

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accurate and smooth to use.

The level of control it gives isn't really sufficient for detailed photo editing or playing first-person shooters, but it's great for controlling a Media Center PC from across the room. It's not only designed for simple movements and selections, either. The scroll bar between the two mouse buttons lets you navigate through documents easily; the Back button is useful for the web; and the Play/Pause button lets you start and stop videos and music. The Volume control is the cleverest part, though. You hold the button down and swing the mouse left and right to raise and lower the volume.

Should you prefer to use the MX Air on a desk, you'll find it just as easy. The slick design is equally comfortable to hold flat on a surface, and it's then precise and accurate because it switches to using a standard laser to detect movement. All the buttons can still be used on the desk except the volume control; you have to pick the mouse up to make this work.

As you might expect for new technology, the MX Air is very expensive. In fact, it costs a lot more than many keyboard and mouse sets combined. If you use a media centre PC from your armchair a lot of the time, it's a brilliant way to control it, but even then it's rather an extravagance.