The double-ended main zip helps here too allowing easy tying-in with minimal faff. No interior drop-pockets for your gloves, though there’s a handy inside check pocket to keep your phone / Mars Bar / random stuff warm and happy.

At the other end of the use spectrum, micro-fleece lined hand-pockets add a touch of luxury for that mid-winter chippy queue experience. There’s enough adjustment at the wrist cuffs to do an ‘over or under’ gig with gloves according to your preferences and the hem adjusters work just fine.

Compared To Other Down Jackets?

It’s all relative of course. I’ve used warmer box-wall expedition jackets that feel like wearing a sleeping bag, but the Neutrino Pro’s fat down compartments mean that you don’t seem to lose a huge amount of heat through the stitch-through baffles – the effect is much more marked with micro-baffled jackets.

The other obvious leak point – the main zip – gets its own lightly insulated baffle strip to minimise heat-loss from that area.

The flip-side of all this, is that the jacket has a sort of maximum temperature that I’d say subjectively is somewhere around zero degrees C or below. It doesn’t mean you can’t wear it when it’s milder, but it feels like uncomfortable overkill. Ditto if you’re moving about at more than a gentle sort of pace.

It’s also not the lightest down jacket out there. If you’re the sort of cutting-edge alpinist who wants the lightest possible warm Rab jacket they can find, you’ll want something like the feathery Zero G or Infinity G. Great jackets for sure, but uncompromising, slightly fragile in feel thanks to the ultra-light fabrics and, well, a tad focussed and showy for more general use.

Of course the Neutrino Pro has a heftier pack size, than say, the Infinity G, which uses roughly the same amount of slightly higher fill power down, but is arguably actually slightly warmer due to the reduced seam-lines – the G is quilted.

On top of that, the more substantial water-resistant fabric adds everyday reassurance and resistance to dripping snow-melt and the like. Oh and when you’re not up a mountain, you can still wear the jacket without looking like a slightly bashful refugee from K2 basecamp. If you are off to K2, check out the Positron Pro, Rab’s warmer again, box-walled, zoned jacket for really cold places / people who don’t run warm.

What Else?

On the technical side of things, in a jacket this warm, water-resistant down is best viewed as a sort of insurance policy against something unexpected and wet happening rather than an invitation to skip through the rain at every opportunity.

If the worst does happen though, it’s reassuring to know that the stuff will dry noticeably faster than untreated down and retain more of its loft once it does dry out. The fabric will help there too.
If the skin on your hands gets dry and flaky, they can catch a little on the microfleece pocket lining in a ‘teeth on edge’ sort of way. Oh, and stray mayonnaise wipes off the sleeves quite easily. Don’t ask how I know etc.

Rab Neutrino Pro Verdict

If you want one down jacket that’ll do pretty much everything in sub-zero conditions, the Rab Nebula Pro ticks the boxes. First and foremost, it’s reassuringly, near-instantly warm, with a pleasingly dense feel to the 800 fill power down.

The water-resistant Pertex Quantum Pro fabric seems deceptively tough and shrugged off snagging encounters with the odd hostile, pointy shrub, and while it’s not super lightweight, our 570g medium test jacket, never felt like a burden on the sort of icy cold days when down makes sense.

It’s versatile too. Right at home on a belay at the bottom of an icefall, or during an evening in a Scottish winter bothy, or when out watching the sun set from Annapurna basecamp. Or on a more mundane, gentle plod to the pub in a deep mid-winter cold snap.

It’s not showy, like Rab’s more focussed ‘alpine’ insulation. Or modishly trendy like the skinny-baffled stuff, which it comprehensively crushes in the warmth stakes. But when it comes to just on getting on with it and keeping you warm and comfortable, it does the job with a refined, discrete, pedigree swagger.

Quibbles? The addition of an internal dump pocket for gloves or a bottle might occasionally be handy, as would a stuffable pocket arrangement instead of – or maybe in addition to – the stuff-sac supplied. But that aside, the Neutrino Pro really is hard to fault as a no-nonsense, big, warm coat.

Magic: Very warm, decent weight and pack size, build quality, robust feel, detailing and overall niceness.

Tragic: Lighter down jackets are available, but they’re generally more fragile. You get what you pay for etc. A bit warm for non-winter use.

Grabbit? The Neutrino Pro is simply a cracking, very warm, solidly-built down jacket that’ll work pretty much anywhere you need a very warm, solidly built down jacket. Top notch water-resistant down meets excellent build quality and detailing – stuff like fleece-lined hand-pockets and bomb-proof zips and adjusters. All of which helps to make it a really nice, though expensive jacket. It’s not super lightweight, but the pay-off is that it feels reassuringly robust compared to ultra-lightweight stuff woven from translucent fairy fabrics. A cracking do-it-all winter insulation all-rounder.

Full Specifications

Pertex Quantum Pro face fabric / Pertex Quantum lining / 800FP ethically-sourced water-resistant goose down / stitch through construction / helmet-compatible down-filled hood with wired peak / twin hand-warmer pockets / internal zipped security pocket / 2-way YKK Vislon front-zip / concealed hood adjusters / adjustable cuffs and hem-cord / supplied with colour-matched stuff sac (18g)

For More Like This

Down And Synthetic Insulated Buyer’s Guide

Rab Electron Down Jacket Review