The description of the generic mage hand in the phb does indeed say you can interact with anything physical and is basically an extension of your hand in every way so you can carry a "thing" of 10lb I am pretty certain. It is however VERY obvious to an observer that the mage hand is coming from the caster as it looks like a large wispy magic extention going from the caster to the hands destination. It is incapable of performing complex actions like the arcane trickster. Mage hand should be more useful than it is currently.
