Speedlink Myst Touch Scroll Mouse

The computer mouse has remained largely the same since it was first popularised in the 1980s, with the addition of the scroll wheel in the 1990s being the last major change to have caught on.

Last year Apple released its so-called Magic Mouse, which replaced the buttons and the wheel with a touch-sensitive top. As welll as moving the Magic Mouse around with a hand you can scroll by running a finger along its top surface, with other ‘gestures' to do other things.

The Myst mouse from Speedlink takes a leaf out of Apple's book for its design. It's available in white and black, with the white one looking distinctly Apple-like, and it also doesn't have visible buttons or a wheel.

Instead, clicking left or right is a matter of pressing down on the mouse's top-left or top-right corners, at which point a click can be heard and felt. A touch-sensitive strip is placed between where the buttons would ordinarily be, and to scroll you run a finger up or down the strip. Tapping and holding the tiny diamond symbol below the strip will allow you to scroll by moving the mouse itself instead. The touch-strip took a bit of getting used to but worked well.

We found the mouse a bit small and short – it's 5.5cm wide and 10.5cm long, which is enough for most hands, but it stands less than 1cm off the table, which was too short for our hands. Holding it normally, like another mouse, meant putting up with a strange gap between the hand and the mouse, and pressing a hand flat onto the mouse's top was uncomfortable. Still, the size makes it easy to carry, which is good for travellers. But we're still not sure why it appears to be named after a classic 1990s adventure game.

There are two versions – we looked at the wired one, which connects to any computer through USB and requires no software. A wireless model costs £6 more and will take a little more setting up, though not much – again it uses USB for the transmitter that plugs into the computer.

It's no Magic Mouse – the Myst is well-built but plasticky and a little too small for comfort – but at £17 it's good value. And at the time of writing it's available for £12.