Mountain Everest Max Keyboard Review: ‘The Swiss Army knife of keyboards’

The Mountain Everest Max is the Swiss Army knife of keyboards. With a detachable media dock and numpad, hotswap switches, individually programmable keys, and a display dial that lets you upload your own photos to look at while you work, this is the Inspector Gadget of keyboards. While some may balk at the price, the plethora of features available right out of the box makes it well worth the asking price, allowing users to tinker with it to their heart’s content.

The Everest Max is just plain fun. Arriving in a box that’s two drawers full of goodies, you can snap together this keyboard like LEGO. Its various ports allow its media dock and numpad to be slotted into different places, its keys can be clicked out with its provided testing kit, and its switches can be replaced. As the popularity of mechanical keyboards continues to explode, the Everest Max being fully equipped right out of the gate but then still allowing for excessive tinkering is a major advantage over other keyboards on the market.

The Everest Max’s most eye-catching feature is undoubtedly its media dock. This nifty little device sits atop the keyboard in one of two USB-C ports, with its display dial allowing you to scroll through various menus and change your keyboard’s settings on the fly, such as altering its volume, fiddling with its RGB lighting, or setting a timer. Here you can also view PC info such as your CPU and GPU usage, with most being relatively accurate aside from download speed, though as my office PC requires a WiFi range extender that may complicate things. You can also use the dock’s five buttons to skip music tracks, pause media, and mute volume, and in one of the Everest’s many neat design flourishes, you can also upload a photo to your display dial via Mountain’s Base Camp software, which will then appear on the dial as a screensaver in surprisingly high-quality.

The numpad is also detachable, with a slider at its rear allowing you to shift its ports to fit in either the left- or right-hand side of the keyboard. This is a revelation for right-handed MMO players, with it allowing you to place the numpad to your left for easy access while giving you more room for mouse movement. The numpad also has four keys similar to a stream deck, with the Base Camp software allowing you to bind them to programs, streaming software, or even putting your PC into standby mode. Similar to a stream deck, the icons on these keys can also be changed, so if you want one to open Steam you can easily get it to display the Steam logo for reference. There’s OBS Studio functionality, t00, which can be set up using Base Camp and do things such as start and end your streams, change your scenes, and alter your microphone volume. Base Camp itself is easy to use, though not as feature-packed as other hardware software on the market such as Razer Synapse, and I found altering its RGB lighting through the program to be functional if a little fiddly.

But what about the keyboard itself? While the Everest Max doesn’t significantly up the game in this department, its utilization of Cherry stabilizers negates any rattling, while users can select their own switches from MX Red, MX Brown MX Blue, MX Speed Silver, and MX Silent Red. I opted for Brown switches to do away with the significant clickiness of my previous keyboard, with the results offering that satisfying gentle thud when the keys reach their actuation point. Of course, with the Everest Max being completely hotswappable, you needn’t stick to the switches or keys you’ve been given; try out the supplied testing kit to see if there are any others that suit you better, and if you have the cash to spare, you can use the supplied keycap puller to easily swap them around.

If you’re customizing a keyboard then you need to have a good base, and while the Everest Max doesn’t exactly boast a standout design, it’s certainly more than meets the eye. The gunmetal black base I opted for is heavy, rendered even heavier with the addition of its dock, numpad, and wrist rest (which is made of sturdier material than my previous Razer Huntsman Elite rest, which ripped after moderate usage). This keyboard could effectively be used as a weapon — though we’d strongly recommend against it, of course — given its hefty weight, granting it a more premium feel and, crucially, making it way easier to clean than its plastic peers.

The Mountain Everest Max has a hefty price tag, with its full kit coming in at $270 (though you can buy the core kit with just the base for $130). But those who know they’ll get plenty of use out of its plethora of fun features will find that it’s well worth it. I can’t imagine switching to a different keyboard since getting the Everest Max, as it offers much of what I need right out of the box, with the option to customize it further down the line.

Mountain Everest Max review united provided by Mountain. Buy the Mountain Everest Max here.