If you own a Home Theater PC you are undoubtedly painfully aware of how hard these machines can be to control. Even with a wireless mouse you are usually still forced to control the thing mainly with the keyboard or a specialized remote control. While this works to a degree when inside a specialized multimedia application (such as the Windows Media Center) things go awry the moment you try to control the windows desktop. Using a mouse solves the problem, but then you need a level surface on which to use the mouse, which pretty much makes it impossible to just lie back and relax while doing it. This is where the MX Air comes into the picture!

Package

Being a high end mouse, the packaging of the MX Air is very classy. Unfortunately it can be opened easily (in fact, the withdraw-able front just begs to be opened), so we recommend you check if the mouse and all the contents are still in the box should you purchase it from a retail outlet. The contents are all neatly secured in the package, so the mouse and all the extras should survive a fall or worse without much trouble.

Inside the box you’ll find the MX Air, the USB wireless receiver dongle (standard size, approximately 3-4cm long), a foldout manual, a long terms of agreement sheet, a cloth with which to clean the MX Air (more on this in a bit) and the mandatory base charger.

Design

I’m sure you will all agree with us when we say the MX Air is a fine looking mouse. The shape is very simplistic, with absolutely no unnecessary indents or anything else that could mar the perfectly smooth surface. The bottom has a slight curve at the middle, which is needed when using the mouse in the air (see Freespace). The entire casing is made of plastic, so the bottom metal coated part will probably start losing paint in due time. Due to the material the mouse is prone to attracting fingertip marks, much like the PS3 and PSP from Sony. Using the cloth provided will become a habit unless you don’t care for how the MX Air looks.

The central part of the MX Air is adorned with 4 buttons. From front to back they are “Back”, “Select”, “Play/Pause” and “Volume”. Above them is the scroll wheel, or rather scroll surface. Because the MX Air is primarily aimed for living room usage having a big scroll wheel in the middle of the device was out of the question. The scroll surface is a decent replacement – to scroll the user must only slide a finger across the surface forward or backward. The front and end of the scroll surface also act as buttons which default to page up/page down. The left and right mouse buttons are seamlessly connected to the rest of the body (much like with any other Logitech mouse). When held in air they both light up with an orange bar, so users know where to press.

The rest of the buttons light up even when using the mouse on a desk (helpful since except for the Select button with a slightly different shape you have no way to tell them apart from each other save for the background lit text/symbol). Finally, the bottom of the mouse (just above the silver part) there is the battery power indicator – this three-level gauge only lights up when the mouse is charging in the cradle or immediately after being turned on/removed from the charger.