In our review, the K1NG 4K Pro turned out to be a surprisingly solid offering, delivering very good performance at a highly competitive price point. At $32.99, the K1NG 8K is even more affordable, but unfortunately, it fails to score even as a budget release.

As far as build quality and buttons go, the K1NG 8K isn't any worse than the K1NG 4K Pro. The weight reduction comes almost entirely from the lack of a battery, which is why the shell isn't any less solid. There is no rattle when shaking the mouse, no creaking or flexing of the shell when applying lateral pressure, and actuating the side buttons by pressing below them cannot be done regardless of the force used. For the main buttons, the same Huano switches of the blue shell, blue plunger type see use, though due to pre-travel being moderate to high, they feel duller than they should, and the moderate amount of lateral button movement is a further detriment, though this only becomes apparent when provoking it, and not during actual use. The side buttons too are outfitted with Huano switches of a different type, which have low pre-travel, but can be pushed into the shell by a decent margin, and feedback on the back button suffers when pressed towards the rear. The scroll wheel encoder once again comes from F-Switch (brown), which gets very noisy when scrolling up in particular, and tactility is largely lacking, too. The feet too are the same: very thin, black-dyed, and providing just decent glide.

Performance is a very mixed bag on the K1NG 8K. First off, CPI deviation is even higher than it was on the K1NG 4K Pro, clocking in at close to +9%, correcting which is easily done, but an inconvenience nonetheless. General tracking is fine, as MotionSync is permanently enabled, and there is no smoothing across the entire range, which is why any CPI step can be used without a latency penalty. Polling is generally stable, though at polling rates below 8000 Hz, periodic off-period polls do show up at a fixed interval, though not frequently enough to be considered meaningful. The target interval is exactly averaged throughout, even at 8000 Hz, which is remarkable in that most other mice using the PAW3395 sensor struggle to hit the target of 0.125 ms with MotionSync enabled. However, 8000 Hz does misbehave in a way, as null reports show up relatively frequently, pointing towards something being amiss. Motion delay is on an excellent level on the K1NG 8K. At 8000 Hz, an advantage of 1.2 ms over the Logitech G403 (control subject) is achieved, and even 1000 Hz still musters an advantage of 0.6 ms. As mentioned, MotionSync is permanently enabled, so these numbers could be even better without MotionSync. Unfortunately, where the K1NG 8K falls off a cliff is click latency. Regardless of polling rate, 17.6 ms are averaged, which is utterly pitiful for any gaming mouse, let alone an 8000 Hz one.

Another big issue is the cable. Calling this one "stiff" would be too flattering. Unless using actual force, the cable refuses to bend in any direction, and will hinder mouse movement even in a bungee. To add insult to injury, the cable is also somewhat short at 1.55 m, so as if the drag from the cable itself wasn't bad enough already, you'll also have drag from the cable stretching. Of course, all of this is doubly felt on a mouse as light as the K1NG 8K, and though not a particularly meaningful metric, at 55 g, the cable actually ends up weighing a decent bit more than the mouse itself. In short, the cable essentially prevents one from using the mouse at all, and the only silver lining is the fact that the cable is detachable and USB Type-C, so finding a more flexible replacement isn't too difficult, provided it has sufficient shielding to ensure signal integrity. Still, unless one already has such a cable lying around, a new one will cost around $10, so that $32.99 price quickly becomes less of a bargain.

Given these issues, the fact that the software is lightweight and has most of the relevant options doesn't provide much solace, either. With a cable this stiff and click latency this high, the K1NG 8K remains a very tough sell, even at its budget price. Accordingly, for those interested in this shape, I'd strongly recommend opting for the K1NG 4K Pro instead, which is the far superior mouse.