Software

The M3 4K comes with its own lightweight software that doesn't require installing. Spelling errors aside, the software is largely functional, though I've noticed that occasionally, setting changes aren't correctly applied. In addition, when using the button on the underside of the mouse for changing polling rate, the setting within the software won't be updated.

All options are accessible through five different tabs. The first page has profile management, polling rate adjustment (125/250/500/1000/2000/4000 Hz; 250 Hz is missing in wired operation), as well as settings for angle snapping (on/off) and lift-off distance (low/high). "Debounce Time" effectively controls click latency can be adjusted from 0 to 15 ms. "Sleep Time" defines after how much idle time the mouse enters sleep mode and can be set from 0 to 30 minutes. "Ripple control" applies smoothing at higher CPI steps to lessen jitter, albeit at the cost of increased motion delay. "MontionSync" (MotionSync) can be turned on or off, and synchronizes SPI reads with USB polls. The second page allows for button remapping to mouse, keyboard, media, and macro functions. The third page houses a macro editor. The fourth has CPI adjustment for up to five color-codes levels, whose values can be changed by right-clicking on the entry. Lighting settings are found on the fifth page and are detailed below.

All settings changes are saved to the on-board memory, so the software does not need to be running (or even installed) all the time. On my system, the software had a RAM footprint of 29 MB on average when running in the foreground, which doesn't change when minimized to the system tray. Upon exiting the application, all processes are terminated, as they should be. Somewhat curiously, instances of Microsoft Edge are initiated upon launching the software, and not terminated when terminating the application itself.

Lighting

The M3 4K has but a single lighting zone, which is the scroll wheel. Four pre-defined lighting effects are available: Wave, Static, "Spetrum" (Spectrum), and Breath. Brightness and transition speed can be adjusted, and for some effects, the colors are adjustable as well. Disabling illumination entirely is also possible.

Color accuracy and vibrancy are good throughout. Below is a short demonstration video in which I go through the Wave and "Spetrum" (Spectrum) lighting effects:

Battery Life

Darmoshark provides no battery life numbers. The software features a percentage-based battery indicator, though even after upwards of five hours of usage at 4000 Hz, the indicator still stood at 100%. Accordingly, I'm unable to gauge anything. In addition, the wireless dongle has an LED indicator, whose color is supposed to change based on battery charge level (green: 90%, blue: 60%, red: 30%). In my case, this still stood at green, too.

Sleep mode is entered after five minutes of inactivity by default, but can be adjusted within the software.

Using the included USB Type-A to Type-C charging cable, I measured the charging speed during the constant current stage, which sits around 0.392 A. The battery has a capacity of 800 mAh (3.7 V) and utilizes a 3-pin JST connector.