The 4.5-litre, four-cylinder engine kicks out a healthy 137hp (a 115hp version is also produced). A combination of EGR and particulate filter control exhaust gases.

There's also a neat new cooling pack. The radiators are stacked side-by-side and protected by a pullout grille at the front to make cleaning easier. A bigger hydraulic fan can be set to automatically reverse for 15 seconds every three minutes, too.

Service access is always awkward on a telehandler. That said, the two-part engine hood makes the oil and fuel filters reasonably easy to get to. The same can't be said of the hydraulic oil site glasses under the cab door that are almost impossible to see.

TRANSMISSION

A big selling point is the 840's five-speed gearbox. A cluster of toggle switches allows the operator to switch from manual - where plus and minus buttons on the joystick control shifts - to auto mode on the move.

You can set the top available gear in auto mode - ideal when you're on clamp duty - but we found manual was fine for yard work. You tend to spend most of your time between gears two and three anyway and in auto mode it can be a bit eager to get up to speed.

There are also two button-controlled operating modes:

1 Road mode, where all five gears are available and torque lockup happens at 23kph in fourth gear and 33kph in fifth.

2 Handling mode, where gears one to four are available, including an inching mode up to gear three. We liked this function, because you can rev up on the hand throttle (yes, hand throttle) and creep slowly without battling against the transmission.

CAB

The cab is 15% bigger than the 741's, with most of the spare space in front and behind the seat. The latter forms an ideal dog bed, while a wide-opening rear window should stop your furry friend stinking out the cab.

Traditionalists might not like the one-piece door, but the electric window is more practical than a stable door and you don't miss the glass lower half (which has a habit of getting smashed, anyway).

The snail-shell-shaped joystick also gets the thumbs up, although controlling the different functions takes a bit of getting used to. The forward/reverse finger switch is handy for shunting to and fro.

Engine temperature, fuel level and rpm are displayed on dials on the corner-mounted dash. An LCD screen the size of two postage stamps shows boom angle, forward speed and driving mode. It's a shame it's so small and will be hard to see once the dust has worked its way in.