Apple Magic Mouse review

Unfortunately, you can't pinch to zoom, as you can on an iPhone, but you do get access to a basic zoom feature by holding down the 'control' key on the keyboard while scrolling up and down on the shell with one finger. You can activate this function with a keyboard on any Mac by toggling the 'universal access' setting in 'preferences'. Finally, Apple's momentum feature senses the speed of your drag and adjusts the corresponding action intuitively.

Our take on the Magic Mouse's multi-touch functionality is bittersweet. We like that the vertical-scrolling functionality of the mouse acts almost exactly like a scroll wheel, except for the fact that you don't get the precision of notched scrolling. Regardless, a simple flick of a finger can send the scroll bar flying down a page, and it's easy to stop by simply tapping once again. The ability to pan 360 degrees is also incredibly useful, and similar to using an actual touchpad, but our main issue lies with the two-fingered swipes.

Up until this review, we simply used the forward and back buttons on the side of our Logitech MX 1100 mouse, but navigating through Web sites using the Magic Mouse is considerably more awkward, especially if you use your index and middle fingers, as advised by Apple. Additionally, if you don't have a uniform grip on the sides of the mouse with your thumb, ring and pinky fingers, the shell can easily get away from your hand. This is why a touch surface with no hard buttons just doesn't make sense on a mouse.

Our last complaint with the Magic Mouse is that the software doesn't let you reassign the effects of your finger swipes. In other words, you can't tell the mouse to open a program or stop playback by swiping two fingers across the surface. The custom preferences for the Magic Mouse include check boxes to turn off the secondary click, momentum scrolling and screen zoom, as well as options to alter tracking, scrolling and double-click speed, but it doesn't make sense to trade in our MX 1100, with nine customisable buttons, a ratcheted/free-spinning scroll wheel, and an advanced sensor, for an Apple-branded accessory with none of the same features.

Conclusion
New users should expect to spend a while adjusting to the narrow shape and 'buttonless' design of the Apple Magic Mouse. We suspect that many Mac users will regard it as the first entry in the next generation of input devices, but we still prefer the Logitech MX 1100, which gives you a more comfortable, sculpted shape, more customisable buttons, a combination scroll wheel, and a more versatile sensor for about £10 less.

Additional editing by Charles Kloet