Rab Microlight Alpine Review

The Microlight Alpine is a top performer across the board. It features good warmth, excellent weather resistance, fits well, and has great features. It's a bit heavy and bulky compared to some of the other jackets, but not the heaviest.

Performance Comparison

Warmth

The Microlight Alpine is one of the warmest jackets we tested. It provides a lot of warmth and is well-suited for serious winter conditions. With an efficient alpine fit that allows you to layer underneath it while not being too big to put a hardshell jacket over it too, it's versatile enough for most conditions.

It's stuffed with recycled 700 fill-power down with a hydrophobic coating. While 700-fill doesn't have the best loft for the weight, it's certainly lofty enough to adequately insulate in most conditions. And the 700-fill down is a big reason why this jacket is so affordable. If it were stuffed with 800-fill down, for instance, this jacket would likely be lighter, warmer, or both. But it would also be more expensive.

The jacket utilizes different-sized baffles in different areas to maximize thermal efficiency. On the front of the jacket, around your core, where you need more warmth, the jacket has wider baffles. On the sides of the jacket, under the arms, there are narrower baffles. This keeps you warm where you need it most without overbuilding areas that don't need as much insulation. It also helps with breathability, but we'll talk more about that below.

Comfort

The Microlight Alpine is one of the most comfortable jackets we tested. It has a tapered, alpine fit that layers well and isn't too big to wear on its own. The lining material feels soft against the skin and is one of our favorites to wear in our day-to-day lives.

The Microlight Alpine has a fit that is just right, allowing for a full range of motion during any activity without being too baggy and getting in the way. It pairs well with other layers, too. This is one of our favorite layers to throw over a thicker fleece, yet it doesn't look like it could fit over a warm mid-layer. Most of our thinner testers liked the fit of this jacket more than some of our more broad-shouldered testers, though.

The hood fits really well and has a knit zipper garage that protects your chin when you wear the hood all day. The hood adjusts with two toggles along the front, with a pair of fixed pieces of elastic sewn into the back of the hood to hold it in place.

The lining material is one of the most comfortable on our bare skin. During testing, we did a lot of fabric feeling, and this fabric feels better than most jackets. It's soft and not slippery in a way that just feels good to wear. It doesn't feel as sticky when you start to sweat as some lightweight jackets do, either.

Portability

Rab could have cut this weight down by using 800-fill down or cutting out some of the features. Ultimately, though, this jacket is light enough for most people, and the 700-fill down makes it a more affordable option than some otherwise comparable 800-fill jackets.

The Microlight Alpine packs down easily into a relatively small stuff sack. The stuff sack has a large clip-in loop to easily hang this jacket off a climbing harness or backpack.

Having the stuff sack makes packing this jacket away easier, but it does mean you have to keep track of that stuff sack while you're wearing it. If you can stuff a coat into one of its pockets, that's one less thing to worry about.

Weather Resistance

The Microlight Alpine is one of the most weather-resistant jackets we tested. Its exterior is very water resistant, and it's insulated with hydrophobic down. This means you'd have to be out in heavier rain or a lot of wet snow before the jacket fully stops insulating. It's also very wind-resistant.

While no down jacket like this one is waterproof, this is one of the more water-resistant jackets we've seen. Like any down jacket, even one with the best DWR treatment, if it sees a significant downpour or if the weather lasts for a long time, then you'll need a rain jacket to stay dry.

The Pertex Quantum nylon outer shell material is treated with a DWR coating that performed very well in field testing and during our spray and rub lab test.

Additionally, the jacket's 700-fill down has a Nikwax hydrophobic water-resistant finish. These two features combined make it one of the most weather-resistant jackets that we tested.

When rain and hail poured down on our testers during hikes out from the Diamond in Rocky Mountain National Park, the water fell off the jacket. Even after a summer of afternoon thunderstorms, the Microlight's DWR still fought the rain. The brimmed hood also kept the water off of our faces.

It also does an excellent job of blocking the wind. On windy ridges, we never felt a significant amount of wind cut through the jacket. In our wind resistance fan test, it let some of the least amount of wind pass through the outer shell material of any jacket we tested.

Breathability

The Microlight Alpine performs just above average in the breathability metric. It's not the most breathable jacket we tested, but we wouldn't hesitate to use it during higher-output winter activities such as hiking, snowshoeing, or sledding with the kids.

It has smaller baffles under the armpits that allow for more airflow, where your body creates a lot of heat. The smaller baffles also keep you cooler, so you don't overheat as quickly. You can also unzip the pockets to vent the lower front of the jacket for breathability.

Should You Buy the Rab Microlight Alpine?

The Microlight Alpine offers a ton of great features at a very affordable price. This is highly water and wind resistant, is very warm, and fits better than most other jackets we tested. It allows a full range of motion during any activity and is one of the most comfortable jackets to wear overall. If you're looking for a jacket to take into alpine environments, want an affordable down jacket to wear around town, or want a jacket that can do it all, you should consider the Microlight Alpine.

What Other Down Jackets Should You Consider?

If you're looking for a lighter, more packable down jacket, check out the ultralight Mountain Hardwear Ghost Whisperer/2. If you're looking for something that's as warm as this jacket but significantly lighter, check out the Feathered Friends Eos. For an even more affordable option without as much weather resistance, check out the REI Co-op 650 Down or the even less expensive Wantdo Packable Down Hoody, that's a decent choice for mild climates.