Freespace

Although the MX Air looks like a regular mouse at first glance it hides a whole lot more in its innards. Using a gyroscope as well as accelerometers the mouse registers pretty much any movement you make with it. If you ever used a Wii remote you’ll know exactly how it works, but unlike the Nintendo console controller the MX Air doesn’t need a receiver bar positioned near the screen. In fact, as far as the mouse is concerned, you can be aiming it in a completely different direction and it will still register all movements correctly. You can even tilt the device by up to 180° in either direction and it will still register horizontal hand movements as up and down and vertical as left and right.

The key in controlling the MX Air in the air is by holding it like a remote control (see picture) and then tilting it in the desired direction. That is not the only control method, but it is by far the most precise one. When handling presentations on a big screen or using a projector you can move your entire arm and the MX Air will still register every move you make, moving the mouse on the screen almost like you were projecting it from your hand. For those of you with jittery hands, you’ll be glad to know that the MX Air uses advanced anti-jitter algorithms, so the mouse cursor won’t move unless you want it to most of the time.

When holding the mouse as shown in the picture all of the buttons are easily reached by using the thumb, except for the top scroll surface button, for which you’ll have to reposition your grip slightly. The 4 control buttons, as well as the left and right buttons are all perfectly positioned, so even after prolonged usage the hand won’t get tired due to an unnatural position.

After installing the Logitech SetPoint 4.0 software you can fully customize what each button does – we recommend switching the Select button from the default “Left mouse click” action to something else, since you can easily press the left mouse button instead. With the software installed it is possible to use gestures to skip tracks. Keeping the play/pause button pressed and making a clockwise motion with your wrist will skip a track while doing the same counterclockwise will select the previous track. This works in pretty much any media application which monitors for forward/back. We didn’t have any luck enabling the feature in Linux since it was near impossible to determine what signal the mouse was sending during the command. Holding down the volume button and waving the mouse left and right to change the volume worked flawlessly however regardless of the operating system used.

Mouse Controls

As a standard mouse the MX Air isn’t the most advanced piece of hardware we have seen, but it is still more than decent. As with the Logitech laptop mice the MX Air uses an 848nm laser to track movement. This makes it more precise than standard optical mice, but with only 800dpi it is still far behind the big boys. You can tweak the sensitivity via the SetPoint software, but you do lose some accuracy by doing this.

Used as a desktop mouse the MX Air fits most hands well, but it doesn’t provide the same amount of comfort as the MX Revolution. On the bright side, the mouse is completely symmetrical, making it ideal for left-handed people (left and right buttons can be swapped via the OS or the SetPoint software). Both left-handed and right-handed people will miss the middle-button though. With no scroll-wheel we were hoping the SetPoint software would allow us to bind the middle click to one of the other buttons (the Select would be a perfect candidate), but as of the latest 4.0 SetPoint version this is still not possible.

Lack of the middle mouse button is not the MX Air’s only fault either. Sometimes it can be awkward using it as a regular mouse, since it only takes a fraction of a second for the air controls to kick in once the mouse is lifted. So if you are used to raising the mouse more than a few millimeters into the air when turning around in a First Person shooter for example you’ll probably trigger the air controls, resulting in unwanted movements of the cursor. As a result of this and the lack of the middle button the MX Air is less than ideal for gaming, where every second counts and even the smallest distraction ends up ruining the game.