Outdoor Research Prevail Heated Gore-Tex - Women's Review

The Outdoor Research Prevail Heated Gloves are supremely warm, water resistant, and protective heated gloves with a goat leather palm, Gore-Tex exterior, and rechargeable battery attachment. They're constructed from high-quality materials and keep our fingers cozy on even the coldest days. In our R-value test, they actually got warmer after five minutes in the deep freezer. However, the unisex sizing may run large for most women, compromising dexterity.

Performance Comparison

Warmth

The Prevail gloves use a rechargeable battery pack to provide electrical warmth, which is distributed throughout the back of the hands and out to the fingertips. The warmest setting is enough to bring hands back from the brink of day-ending deep freeze, while the medium setting is great for all-day warmth in colder ski climates. The low setting is hard to distinguish on the coldest days, but in more temperate winter weather, with temps just below freezing, the lowest setting provides consistent all-day warmth. Don't worry if you run out of battery, “the glove itself, before adding any heat, is also fairly warm and will still keep your fingers cozy even when the battery dies,” said our lead tester.

These gloves combine battery-powered heat with ample synthetic insulation, featuring a soft fleece interior for extra comfort. They kept us warm during the coldest ski days and are equally well-suited for snowmobilers and outdoor professionals. “Unfortunately, they don't have enough dexterity for ice climbing. Otherwise, they would be amazing in that environment where my hands are always cold.” noted our lead tester. It does take a few minutes for the heating element to kick in, so we found it helpful to turn them on about 10 minutes before heading out. On medium heat, the batteries last around 6 hours, while the highest setting provides 2-3 hours of warmth. While you might need to manage your heat usage, they're effective enough that it's not a major concern.

Dexterity

Dexterity was notably not the strength of these gloves, especially not for those with smaller hands. Our male tester noted that the Prevail heated gloves had “respectable” dexterity and some of the best that he's ever seen in a heated glove — we wish that we could agree. Our female testers had trouble doing basic tasks in these bulky gloves, with extra finger material making tasks like buckles and small zipper pulls challenging to impossible. A wrist cinch strap might be helpful to keep hands in place, and maybe in coming years, these will come out in a smaller size.

Understandably, these gloves weren't able to compete with the dexterity of thinner gloves, and most women will find even the unisex extra small too large to have the precision for grabbing smaller zipper pulls and fastening small buckles. For the record, we tested the extra small. If you have larger hands, you might be pleasantly surprised with their dexterity, as noted by our male tester. But, for their supreme warmth, we were willing to compromise a bit here.

Water Resistance

With integrated Gore-Tex and watertight seams, these gloves offer top-shelf water resistance. During our submersion test, no water seeped through anywhere, and the exterior barely absorbed any moisture even after two minutes of full submersion. A generous wrist gauntlet provides extended protection up the forearms, while a snug drawstring closure seals the opening securely over jacket cuffs. This design keeps snow at bay, making them ideal for deep powder days or snowmobiling. We wouldn't have any reservations about wearing these in wetter climates. In our objective tests, they absorbed one of the lowest amounts of water out of any glove or mitten in our test.

While we wouldn't want to regularly get these gloves super wet for the sake of the battery life and all the interior wiring, the exterior, for the most part, repels moisture. We also likely wouldn't reach for this glove on a warmer day when we were expecting wet precipitation just because of how incredibly warm they are.

Construction Quality

These gloves are built with excellent construction quality and showed no signs of wear during our testing period. The fingertips and thumbs are covered with leather reinforcements where most wear normally occurs, so your fingers shouldn't come popping through these gloves anytime soon. Critical seams are double-stitched, and the wrist gauntlet features a rugged nylon material to withstand sharp abrasion. For the price, these are qualities we would expect.

It's worth noting that all leather gloves wear out over time, and like any other leather, they will need to be treated each season. These gloves seem like they will last a long time skiing at the resort. In the backcountry, we would likely limit which days to use them to increase their lifespan. For lots of technical rope work or climbing, we would leave these gloves at home.

Features

Obviously, the standout feature of these gloves is the battery-powered heat with three different, intuitive heat settings, but they also come with a host of other great and functional features. Notably, they have pretty effective touchscreen compatibility, which is impressive for such a large and thick glove. They also come with wrist leashes, pull tabs to batten down the hatches, and a soft, absorbent nose wipe on the thumb.

The Prevail delivers in this metric with a full set of features, and aside from the overly generous fit, we can't find many issues with these overall. They also come with a charger and cord for the rechargeable batteries, a mesh travel bag, a clip to keep them together, and adapters for travel abroad when you're off chasing far-flung arctic adventures. We do wish that they had a wrist cinch strap, as this might help improve their fit and dexterity for smaller hands.

Should You Buy the Outdoor Research Prevail Heated Gore-Tex?

If you are looking for the absolute warmest gloves, the Prevail is here for you. If you spend lots of time braving the cold skiing on below-zero days, need warm gloves for other extreme-weather activities, or just simply run cold, these are some of the best options on the market. However, if you're looking to save money, have small female hands, or only ski on moderate weather days, these gloves are likely too much for your needs.

What Other Ski Gloves Should You Consider?

If you want maximum warmth but don't want to deal with charging batteries every time you ski, the Arc'teryx Fission SV is one of the warmest pairs of gloves we tested, but it has the same challenges with an oversized unisex fit. The Outdoor Research Revolution is quite warm in most conditions and our overall top choice. For top-level warmth without batteries, it's also worth considering a lofty mitten like the Black Diamond Mercury Mitt.