With the standards for gaming mice rising every day, getting a mouse "right" is no easy task, especially if it's a company's first attempt at making a gaming mouse. In fact, one could liken such an endeavor to climbing a mountain. Given these circumstances, I'm quite impressed by the Mountain Makalu 67. What may look like "yet another lightweight mouse" is in fact a well-engineered piece of hardware.

What's striking is the combination of the low weight of 64 g (which may end up being 67 g for retail units as the side walls have been further reinforced) with a very solid construction and high button quality across the board. All buttons have been placed on separate PCBs to ensure satisfying clicks, and the shell itself proves just as solid, aside from minor side flex. The main buttons are separated from the shell, but lateral movement is minimal, and the buttons don't touch each other, either. The scroll wheel is among the best I've tried lately, with tactile, easily discernible steps and a quiet operation. The holes—or vents, rather—don't cover the main buttons and only partially the sides, so grip isn't negatively impacted. The low weight is even more remarkable when taking the size of the Makalu 67 into account, which is comparable to the Logitech G403. In fact, the entire shape is rather similar to that of the G403, so those fond of this particular shape should feel right at the home with the Makalu 67.

The Makalu 67 is the first publicly available mouse with PixArt's newest flagship sensor, the PAW3370. While real-world performance benefits over established sensors, such as the PMW3360 or PMW3389, are marginal at best, I am happy to report that the PAW3370 in the Makalu 67 performs near-flawless, aside from very minor USB polling inconsistencies in a specific RGB lighting mode. Speaking of which, RGB is done tastefully on the Makalu 67. While the LED ring around the scroll wheel can display a variety of fairly rich lighting effects, it never looks tacky or overdone. Click latency is low out of the box and can be increased within the software should double clicks occur. The cable is among the more flexible of its type and almost on par with the Cooler Master MM711 or Endgame Gear XM1 White cables, which are commonly regarded as the most flexible stock cables. The mouse feet provide excellent glide, and a set of replacement mouse feet is included in the box, which is something I wish more companies would do.

The only flaw I could find is the software. Although the latest release is stable now, there is still no denying that the software is quite the resource hog. A RAM footprint of 240 MB is rather substantial considering the somewhat basic functionality—as a comparative example, the software for the Cooler Master MM711 provides similar functionality at a fraction of the RAM cost at just 50 MB. Thankfully, there is no need to keep the software installed as all setting changes are directly saved to the on-board memory.

Next to the competition, the Makalu 67 looks pretty good. The biggest contender is the Glorious Model D, which too is a large right-handed ergonomic mouse with similarly excellent performance but slightly worse quality for $10 less. The Dream Machines DM4 Evo has a shape similar to that of the Makalu 67, but slightly worse quality, at $44.99. Finally, the ROCCAT Kain 100 AIMO offers similar quality and performance, albeit with a technically inferior sensor, at $49.99.

Overall, Mountain really knocked it out of the park with their debut mouse, which is why it gets our Editor's Choice from me. Please note that the Mountain Makalu is exclusively available through the Mountain brand shop.