Magic Cube

Back in the 80s, there was one thing that caused millions of badly-dressed people to laugh, sob and gnaw their knuckles in utter frustration. No, not Simon le Bon's dancing, the Rubik's Cube. This infuriatingly addictive multi-coloured puzzle was a true superstar back in the day, and the quest to match its coloured faces remains as challenging as ever.

But even icons need a makeover once in a while, so some bright spark has taken the basic cube concept and given it a Noughties revamp. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the ultra-sleek Magic Cube. This electronic version of the world's greatest arthritis-inducing brain-mangler is set to become a post-millennial puzzling sensation, and it's even more compelling than the original.

Built in games...


Basically the entire digital shebang is crammed with colour-changing LEDs, so instead of manually twisting segments you press buttons to move the colours in the desired direction. Genius. But wait, there's more: the Magic Cube contains other games, including Landmine (six players take it in turn to push a button until they hit a 'landmine'), Noughts and Crosses and a Simon-style follow-my-leader challenge.

On the off-chance you tire of fiddling with this smart, take-anywhere block of unadulterated brilliance you can activate its mood light function and gawp in wonder as its internal LEDs illuminate randomly. The effect is really rather relaxing. Which is just as well because you might be tempted to chuck the Magic Cube out of the window and drop a grand piano full of anvils on it after you fail to solve it for the kajillionth time. You can't even cheat by peeling off the colours and gluing them back in the right place. Not that we ever did that, you understand.

The original twisty-turny cube won countless design awards back in its heyday, and we fully expect this hi-tech version to follow suit. It really is a beautifully put-together object. All you have to do is solve it. Aargh!!