Mountain is the latest company to enter the eSports gaming peripherals industry. Although they were only founded in 2018, the company has already released its first right-handed gaming mouse, the Makalu 67. Although it may sound like a strange name for a mouse, it is actually named after the fifth highest mountain in the entire world. The Makalu 67 was initially released in black however there is also a beautiful white variant that was recently released. At an entry-level price point of under 60 Euros, the Makalu 67 promises ‘uncompromised performance’ largely due to the low weight and the PixArt PAW3770 sensor. However, what makes the mouse truly stand out from the competition is the patented rib cage design, which not only looks fantastic, but also reduces the weight. At only 67g (hence Makalu 67), this must be one of the lightest gaming wired mice I have ever used.
UNBOXING EXPERIENCE
At an entry-level price point, I didn’t expect the Makalu 67 to come with any special type of packaging. However, it is clear that Mountain has taken a lot of time and effort in providing an unboxing experience that makes you feel as if you’ve bought into a very high quality product.
As you open the box which also contains a cut-out on the flap to match the Mountain logo, you’re presented with a message from the founder of Mountain. The message emphasizes the philosophy of the company – their mission is to provide peripherals where the user experience is core to everything they do, with zero compromises. The mouse sits very flush in a thick foam padding and has absolutely no chance of falling out until you pull it out yourself. There are also some stickers, documentation and some replacement feet for the mouse. Should you use a mouse mat, it’s less likely that you’ll need to replace the feet, but it’s great that Mountain still gave you some spares.
The first thing I noticed was how light the mouse was. In fact, it’s actually slightly less than the quoted 67g! There are plenty of mice that are this light, but all of the ones that I’ve used are considerably smaller. The Makalu 67 however doesn’t compromise on size. It’s a regular-sized mouse designed to fit the right-hand of a typical gamer.
The Makalu 67 is a wired mouse with no wireless option. The cable is just under 2m in length, which is perfectly reasonable. In addition, it is completely braided, which ensures a longer lifespan and almost no chance of entanglement. There’s also a ferrite bead at the end. Some gamers may not know that this is actually designed to reduce noise. The other end of the cable is a gold-plated USB-A connector. Unfortunately there is no USB-C adapter.
DESIGN & BUILD QUALITY
The design of the Makalu 67 is perhaps the most innovative. This isn’t the first mouse with grooves. There are many others that also have grooves, however none that are implemented quite as well as this. It’s important that the overall shape of the mouse is also ergonomic, with the buttons positioned in the right locations, and the Makalu 67 does an excellent job with this. With a wide back and a narrow front with a steep slope near the front, my large palm sat very comfortably on the mouse. Due to the steep slope in the front, the buttons aren’t going to be as high as you may be used to on a regular mouse. It only takes 10 minutes to get used to the slope.
The back half of the mouse consists primarily of the holes that lets you see directly inside the mouse. The holes aren’t sharp and no matter where you prefer to rest your fingers, they won’t intrude in the slightest. A couple of people also asked me if the holes exist so that a fan can blow air onto your palm. The holes purely exist in order to reduce the weight of the mouse. There is no fan inside blowing air onto you. Anyone who sweats to the levels of needing a palm fan has bigger problems to worry about!
The entire mouse is made from a matte plastic material. The benefit of the matte material is that it leaves very little visible fingerprints, especially if you get the white one. Although you ideally need to use a mouse for months to notice signs of fatigue, I’ve been using the Makalu 67 extensively for more than a week now and I see no cosmetic wear and tear, suggesting that Mountain coated this mouse with high quality materials.
The mouse is also built sturdily. I initially feared that there would be some sort of rattle, but there is none whatsoever. Even the buttons only click when you want them to. There is very little stiffness to the buttons, which ensures smooth clicks without any effort. The Makalu 67 uses Omron D2FC-F-K 50M switches, and these result in a clicky and responsive experience when pressing the buttons. In addition to the standard buttons (left, right buttons, side buttons and scroll wheel), there is also a dedicated button to change the CPI level, which I found very useful as I could change it depending on what I was using the mouse for.
Unlike many mice I’ve used in the past, the Makalu 67 is one of the rare times where I have to praise the scroll wheel. I just don’t like scroll wheels that produce a lot of noise. At the same time, I would like some form of tactile feedback. The Makalu 67’s scroll wheel is silent but also provides sufficient feedback.
The Makalu 67 also contains a single area where RGB lighting would omit from. There is an LED effect that surrounds the scroll wheel and there are three pre-configured effects that you can choose from via the mouse’s software. You can choose for the light to be a single colour, a rainbow wave or it can even be set to pulsate. You can also switch it off entirely.
PERFORMANCE
Ultimately, what you need from an eSports gaming mouse is high performance, and the Makalu 67 gives you that. It’s not the best mouse in this category (the Razer Viper series still wins my vote on that front), but for the price you’re paying, it does a fantastic job. Considering it is capable of up to 19,000 CPI with preset values of 400, 800, 1200, 2000 and 19,000, it is clear that there are modes that are designed for basic usage e.g. web browsing, and then one for hardcore gaming. Although it’s very difficult to judge whether the mouse is actually providing 19,000 CPI, given the quality of the mouse and that it’s made from a German manufacturer, I have no doubt that the mouse is achieving this level.
The Makalu 67 was tested primarily on Call of Duty Warzone and Overwatch – both games require significant reflexes and would be able to take advantage of the side buttons of the mouse for lethal/non-lethal equipment or other tasks such as reloading. Throughout 20 hours of use, the mouse remained consistently responsive and never let me down. For gamers who play MMOs, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the Makalu 67 since there are other mice in the market that provide a lot more configurable buttons. However for any FPS gamers, the Makalu 67 is an excellent wired mouse that will provide great performance when paired with a high quality mouse mat.
SOFTWARE
The Makalu 67 is fully configurable via the BaseCamp software. This software is also usable with other Mountain products such as the Everest keyboard lineup. The software UI is very cleanly split into multiple sections to allow you to segregate your profile settings to your lighting, macros, mouse sensitivity etc. You can even use the software to reconfigure the 5 different CPI settings. To go a step further, you can also change the button response time in case you want to delay it for whatever reason. Once you save the settings, the profiles are all stored onto the mouse. Therefore, you don’t need BaseCamp to be running in the background in order to use any custom settings.
CONCLUSION
In the UK, the Makalu 67 has a retail price of just under £55, whereas in the EU, it is just shy of 60 Euros. Essentially, this mouse is an ideal entry-level mouse for gamers who want to take their PC gaming to the next level. Although I wouldn’t recommend it to any hardcore MMO players, it’s a great product for people with medium-large sized hands who primarily play FPS games. Also, if you’re a leftie, this mouse isn’t designed with you in mind, although there is always hope that Mountain will release a mouse for lefties. Considering this is Mountain’s first stab at a gaming mouse, they have done a fantastic job of releasing a device that will turn more heads than your average gaming mouse just because of its unique design.