Gyration Air Mouse Elite review

Gyration's Air Mouse Elite is a wireless pointing device with a split personality. A gyroscope from the people behind the Nintendo Wiimote allows mid-air cursor control with a flick of the wrist, yet set the Elite down on a flat surface and it automatically transforms into a standard mouse.

It's aimed mainly at those who switch frequently between desktop work and presentation and in this mode it works extremely well. In both motion sensor and desktop modes it's a comfortable and remarkably accurate pointing device.

There's nothing fancy about the button configuration - aside from left and right buttons, there's just a clickable scroll wheel for desktop use. For "in-air" use, there are four configurable shortcut buttons on top just behind the scroll wheel, and there's one underneath to kick the accelerometers into action.

It feels well made, with just enough weight to give a quality feel, but not so much that it feels heavy to move. It comes with a rechargeable battery and docking cradle, and bundled software adds a host of useful tools, shortcut gestures and button customisations. We particularly liked the zoom tool which, once activated, allows you to zoom then pan around the screen by moving your wrist - very useful for software demonstrations. You can even choose to assign different behaviours to buttons depending on the application in use.

But as well as adding value, the software does have holes. The media control section, for example, only allows you to add context-senstive button customisations for Media Player, not Windows Media Center; a turn off for those looking for an advanced remote control substitute. The onscreen keyboard isn't great either, remaining the same size no matter what the resolution; the bigger your screen, the fiddlier it gets. And although Gyration claims a range of up to 30m, we'd say that was on the ambitious side. In our tests the Elite gave up the ghost after 20m.

That's probably enough for most purposes, however, and for those who present for a living, the Gyration Air Mouse Elite could well prove an invaluable tool. It's amazingly accurate, easy to pick up and use, and the bundled software offers some useful professional tools. If gyration want to sell it for home use, however, it's going to need to polish its software.

Author: Jonathan Bray