Mountain MacroPad: Closer Examination

The Mountain MacroPad is, as the name suggests, a small keypad with 12 keys marked M1-M12 in a rectangular orientation, split into two rows of six keys each. It uses a brushed aluminium frame over an ABS plastic case and has beveled edges at the top and bottom. The side bezels are longer than usual to accommodate installation as we shall soon see, and it appears to only come in the "Midnight Black" color seen above. As such, those who purchased the Mountain Everest Max or Core in the gunmetal gray color would end up with mismatched colors even more so than the subtle finish discrepancies I had noticed between the Everest Core and the number pad. For a company priding itself on modules and a longer lifetime for its peripherals this aspect could have been improved upon. The underside has a certification sticker as well as two round rubber pads. The expected Type-C port is located on the back, above the Mountain logo and inside a large enough cutout to also accommodate aftermarket cables if necessary.


The metal wire keycap puller makes it easy to get the stock keycaps out for closer examination as well as replacement with custom keycaps if you so desire—I can certainly see this keypad being prime property for 1u artisans to be featured on. Mountain is using thin ABS plastic keycaps (average wall thickness 0.93 mm) with laser etched legends that will inevitably show signs of use in both developing a shine as well as potential fading of the legends. On the plus side they are backlighing compatible and Mountain no doubt has RGB LEDs integrated here. There is a single switch option here in the form of the Mountain Tactile 55 characterized also by the company logo present on the switch.


The provided switch remover tool comes in handy to take the switches off too, which also confirms the use of north-facing LEDs here and a 5-pin hot-swappable socket that allows you to use your favorite MX-style crosspoint stem switches here if you don't fancy the Mountain Tactile 55 with its blue colored stem/slider installed on a transparent top housing and white base.


Mountain debuted its own branded switches with the Everest 60 with my review unit of the same using the Mountain Linear 45 switches as seen here. This is my first time using the Mountain Tactile 55 thus and I wanted to take one apart to see how it functions. This 3-pin mechanical switch employs the cross-point Cherry MX stem design, so we have the usual construction with the top, a crosspoint stem and slider, spring, and housing that has the metal leaf for the actuation mechanism. The switch does come pre-lubed on the sides of the stem and slider, and bottom of the spring. It's done well enough from the factory not to necessitate re-lubing in my opinion, at least for the typical customer. This is also clearly a tactile switch with a bump along the path of the stem as it meets the metal contacts to initiate switch actuation and provide tactile feedback. More information is available here for those interested, as I will refrain for going further down the switch road in this review.


Installing the MacroPad into the provided base is simple enough once you realize there are two mating surfaces involved. Simply push the MacroPad into the base as seen above where the plastic surfaces now make for a friction fit combined with the rubber pads on the underside of the MacroPad itself. This combination comes in at ~14.5 x 7 x 8 cm and weighs ~530 g, of which the base contributes the vast majority as seen previously. The keys are aligned at an angle for easier access and there is plenty of room on the back to fit in the provided cable which can also be easily hidden away from sight if you have a desk with cable management channels/grommets.