Mouse design now tends to favour gamers who want mice with lots of shortcut buttons and fast speeds.

The Saitek Photo Mouse, on the other hand, makes a rather good present for home users, with the ability to use your own picture inside the transparent case.

As a mouse it is comfortable to use and the blue light shining from behind the wheel is unobtrusive. It uses a wired USB connection but that means there are no battery problems. No drivers are required - for once 'plug and play' really worked, with Windows detecting it automatically.

The photo is held in place behind a clear panel at the back of the mouse and there is a white light to illuminate it. A small button releases the clear cover to change the photo.

There is a cut-out template in the manual to fit a photo in place, and a slightly more polished look is possible by downloading a template file from the Saitek website. The template is in a variety of formats but does still require some knowledge of using image editors.

We like the Photo Mouse and found ourselves using it for day-to-day tasks, a refreshing change after trying some of the more gimmicky gaming mice.

Vista compatible: Yes