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Tech · Apple · 2024

Apple Magic Mouse

Beautiful, gesture-rich, and shaped in a way that most hands stop tolerating after an hour.

A desk that looks right, and what it costs the hand — #2

Overall

6.8

out of 10

Axis scores

Tech is scored on these 5 axes. The total is their plain average — nothing is weighted.

Apple Magic Mouse — axis scores out of 10Horizontal bar chart of editorial scores out of 10 across 5 axes. Bars run from a shared zero baseline; longer is better. Apple Magic Mouse: Performance 6.8, Value 5.6, Durability 7.8, Ease of use 5.4, Design 8.6.PerformanceApple Magic Mouse — Performance 6.8 out of 106.8ValueApple Magic Mouse — Value 5.6 out of 105.6DurabilityApple Magic Mouse — Durability 7.8 out of 107.8Ease of useApple Magic Mouse — Ease of use 5.4 out of 105.4DesignApple Magic Mouse — Design 8.6 out of 108.6Editorial score out of 10 — higher is better
  • Performance — How well it does the core job
  • Value — What the same money buys elsewhere
  • Durability — Failure and fade reports past the one-year mark
  • Ease of use — Setup, daily operation, cleaning, maintenance
  • Design — Build quality and how it sits in a room

Specs

Surface
Multi-touch gestures
Charging
USB-C port on the underside
Profile
Almost flat

As published by the manufacturer. We didn't measure these ourselves.

Is it for you

Buy it if

  • macOS gesture navigation is central to how you work
  • The mouse spends more time being looked at than used
  • You want something that disappears into a minimal desk

Skip it if

  • You use a mouse for more than about an hour at a time
  • Charging from a port on the underside is an obvious problem

A single piece of seamless acrylic over an aluminum base, sitting almost flush with the desk. The object is beautiful, and nothing else in this comparison looks like it belongs on a minimal desk instead of in an office supply catalogue.

The gestures back that up and are wired deeply into macOS. Swiping between spaces, two-finger scrolling with proper momentum, the smart zoom double-tap — all of it feels native in a way third-party mice never quite match, because the entire top surface is a touch panel and not a wheel with two buttons.

An hour in, the shape stops working. The near-flat profile forces maximum forearm pronation and gives the palm nothing to rest on, so the hand is held rather than supported. Owner reports tie that posture to discomfort within about an hour with unusual consistency. This is not a matter of preference.

The charging port moved to USB-C in 2024 and stayed on the underside, so the mouse still cannot be used while charging. It takes minutes to reach a usable charge and runs for weeks, which keeps this an occasional irritation and not a daily one. It also remains an entirely avoidable design decision that has survived multiple revisions.

On Windows the gestures do not work without third-party drivers, which reduces it to an awkwardly shaped two-button mouse.

Last updated . The scoring method is on how we rank.