Mountain Everest 60 review

The market for gaming keyboards is full of full-size and tenkeyless (TKL) boards. However, 60 percent of of boards, the smallest standard keyboard size, have been less popular in the gaming space in the past. This is because the 60 percent layout usually gives up the arrow keys and the numpad to make the keyboard smaller.

But not the Mountain Everest 60. This Mountain Everest 60 is 60 percent mechanical keyboard has arrow keys and the option to add a detachable numpad, making it perfect for gamers who want to save space but still have the option of extra keys. It’s also easy to change. The Mountain Everest 60 has 11 keycap color combinations and three switch options.

Our review unit had black keycaps and Mountain Linear 45 switches. It also had a numpad. The keyboard by itself starts at $140, and the keyboard and numpad together start at $190.

Mountain Everest 60 review: Design

One of the best things about the Mountain Everest 60 is that it can be changed to fit your needs. In fact, Mountain is eager to say that it is not just flexible but also “modular.” This is because it comes with three different Mountain switches: the Tactile 55, the Linear 45, and the Linear 45 Speed.

As mentioned above, you can also add a numeric keypad, which can be attached to either the keyboard’s left or right side. You can also order different color combinations for the keycaps (we opted to stick with Teutonic black and were happy to do so). All of the switches and keycaps can be changed on the fly.

The Everest 60 comes with a tool that makes it easy to take them off. It’s easy to make a fully customized Everest 60, which is probably a good thing since, at its RRP, it’s pretty pricey for a 60% keyboard. It also has some cool design features. The USB-C to USB cable can be plugged into any of the three USB-C ports on the back plate, giving you more room if the thing you’re plugging it into isn’t right next to where you’re sitting.

The length of that cable is 2m, which isn’t very much, so that extra space could be useful. It also comes with four magnetic spacers that can be used to make the two back legs longer, giving the rake a steeper angle if that’s what you want. You can buy this gaming keyboard from its official website.

Mountain Everest 60 review: Connectivity

There have been other instances of detachable Numpads, thus this isn’t a first. Previously, both Mountain and ASUS had achieved this with their ROG Claymore. Many factors make this modular Numpad the best we’ve seen, including the components’ connections and the magnetic ecology that Mountain has established.

Please take note that the Numpad is sold separately. It comes with the Everest 60, or you can buy it alone. The Everest 60’s base features a secret double-sided connector that can be used to attach the Numpad to either the left or right side of the keyboard. The male USB Type-C connector can be accessed from either side by sliding the tab at the bottom.

Both the magnets and the female USB C connection on the board are oriented in the same direction, thus the USB C connector has a small magnetic pin on either side. Get things all lined up and ready to click together.

Mountain Everest 60 review: Keys

The Mountain Everest 60 is different from other 60% mechanical keyboards I’ve used because it has arrow keys and the option to connect a numpad. Mountain took a risk when they added arrow keys to the Everest 60. It’s not easy to do this without making the keyboard less useful.

We like smaller keyboards, but we mainly switched from a 60 percent layout to a 65 percent layout because we wanted arrow keys. Adding arrow keys to the Everest 60 is a bold move by Mountain, but it’s not always a good thing.

Mountain cut the right shift, function, and control keys down to 1u so that the arrow keys could fit on the board (one unit, or the standard size of a letter key). After a few days of using the Everest 60, we were mostly able to get used to the 1u right shift.

Mountain Everest 60 review: Software

This wouldn’t be a real gaming keyboard without per-key RGB, but the Everest 60 has it. We liked how the keyboard’s RGB looked, especially around the edges, but the keycaps didn’t let much light through. When I set the LEDs to white, the keycaps made the light look more like light pink. Software problems made it hard to get to the per-key RGB, which I’ll talk about a little later.

The keycaps on the Everest 60 are double-shot PBT, lasting longer than dye-sub keycaps. I liked how these PBT caps felt. They’re not rough like some PBT caps on other gaming keyboards I’ve seen. The quality of the keycaps is good in terms of how long they will last, but the alphas and modifiers look a little blurry, especially on the caps lock key.

Mountain Everest 60 review: Performance

The Everest 60 works very well. It has a quiet sound profile that helps you focus on the game at hand, and its rubberized feet are very sticky and keep the board from moving around. This makes it impossible to move around the desk, even if you’re spamming through menus quickly after losing at Apex Legends again and hitting the keys very hard.

We were given the Mountain Tactile 55 switches, which are similar to the Cherry MX Red in that they are tactile key switches. If you want to get the most out of this board, you should get it with either the Mountain Linear 45 or the Linear 45 Speed switches. The Everest 60 is hot-swappable and works with both 3-pin and 5-pin Cherry MX style switches.

This means that if you don’t like Mountain’s range of switches, you can use any other MX style key switch instead. The Tactile 55s worked well for gaming, but we think they’re better for things other than gaming. Let’s talk about typing while we’re at it.

Mountain Everest 60 review: Price

Price-wise, the MOUNTAIN Everest 60 compact 60% gaming keyboard costs US$139.99, no matter what type of switch it has. For an extra $49.99, you can add on the numpad. A pack of 90 switches costs $39.99, a pack of 110 switches costs $49.99, and a set of colored keycaps costs $34.99. You can save some money by buying the keyboard and keycaps together for $159.99.

Even though you can find 60% keyboards for less money, the Mountain Everest 60 is priced fairly and in the same ballpark as other high-end OEM products. You also get a full set of number keys and the option to add a numpad to the keyboard for more efficiency easily. Value is also added by the performance and the different switches that can be used.

Final Words

In general, the Mountain Everest 60 provided an outstanding typing experience, which is particularly impressive given that it is a stock gaming keyboard. Although there was some stabilizer rattle, it was nowhere near as terrible as I’ve seen on other boards. The pre-lubed switches were among the best I’ve seen, and the sound dampening was of the highest caliber.