Top Rated: Mountain Equipment Echo Hooded Jacket (8.5 / 10)
Category: Lightweight (Under 400g) Softshell Hooded Jacket
When designers know exactly what they're making, why they're making it and who they're making it for, you get pieces like Mountain Equipment's Echo Hooded Jacket. An understated, minimalist, lightweight, abrasion and weather resistant work-horse, designed to take a pounding so you and your less hardy apparel don't have to.
The few features it possesses function flawlessly and are all finished to Mountain Equipment's usual high standard. Perfection isn't easy, and this jacket isn't perfect, but aside from our minor gripe about the cuffs and its somewhat over-weight price tag, it's not too far off.
Will the Echo bond with Rab's Momentum to make a modular Winter Softshell that is lighter but comparable in performance to the proven Borealis-Chockstone combo? We'll have to wait and see. But for now, the Mountain Equipment Echo Hooded Jacket is our top pick in the Lightweight Hooded Softshell category.