AT FIRST I was angry with this device. Surely a prerequisite of any power tool is that it's easy to turn off - yet the on-off switch for this Bosch mini-sander is small, awkwardly placed and hard to move. I also raised an eyebrow at the three supplied sanding sheets. They come in three grades of roughness, yet the paper was clearly designed for a larger sander because the printed specifications on the back are so widely spaced that they often fail to appear at all.

But then I used it. Two years ago I impulsively slapped white paint over the sitting room door frame. When my wife came home I was ordered to change it back to bare wood. However, the combination of good paint, grainy wood and complicated shapes resisted a heat gun, a wire brush, wire wool, paint remover, and my full-sized Bosch orbital sander (which has an excellent trigger-style on/off switch). For two years the job has languished, the door frame such a mess of paint and bare wood that it ought to be swinging a bell and shouting: “Unclean!”

But the PSM 80A cruised through. Its pointy little corners dug out the most evasive specks of white. It also passed a key meanness test: it has more than 2m of cable. The device is so light (it's like a chunky travel iron) that reaching the top of the door frame was easy - at which time I was particularly grateful that the dust was being sucked into its neat little filtration box instead of falling into my eyes. It also felt unlikely to run away with you, so that its stiff switch remains inexplicable but seems far less important. Anyway, after that door frame I'll forgive it anything.

HERO'S VERDICT: ****

The Bosch PSM 80A mini-sander costs £34.99 (excluding VAT) www.boschpowertools.co.uk

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