Software

The software for the Makalu 67 is called BaseCamp and used for other Mountain products as well. Initial versions were very buggy, but the release used for the review (1.15) proved stable. There are separate pages for profiles, lighting, key binds, macros, and general mouse settings. All buttons can be rebound, either to mouse, keyboard, macro, media, or OS functions. CPI adjustment ranges from 100–19,000 CPI in increments of 50 from 100–10,000 CPI and increments of 100 from 10,100–19,000 CPI. Button Response Time (i.e., debounce delay, which affects click delay) can be adjusted from 2–12 ms, in steps of 2. Further settings include polling rate adjustment (125, 250, 500, or 1000 Hz) and lift-off distance (low/high). All settings are updated live and saved to the on-board memory, so the software does not need to be running (or be installed) all the time. On my system, the software had a RAM footprint of 240 MB on average when running in the foreground and 225 MB when minimized. Upon exiting the application, a single process with a RAM footprint of 24 MB keeps running.

Lighting

The Makalu 67 has but a single zone for RGB lighting, which is an LED strip around the scroll wheel. A total of three pre-defined lighting effects are available in the software. These are Static (single color), Color Wave (Rainbow), and Breathing (single color, dual color, rainbow). Lastly, a Custom mode allows for setting custom colors of eight individual zones within the lighting zone. For most effects, it's possible to set custom colors and adjust brightness, transition speed, and direction. Of course, it is also possible to disable the lighting altogether.

Color accuracy and vibrancy are excellent throughout. Here's a short demonstration video in which I'm going through the three Breathing modes (single color, dual color, rainbow) and the Color Wave mode: