It has been three years since the Razer Viper 8K debuted 8000 Hz polling on wired mice, yet interestingly enough, not that many 8000 Hz wired mice followed. Conceivably, this is due to the fact that the emergence of 8000 Hz wired mice coincided with a much more pronounced push towards wireless, and these days, 4000 Hz wireless mice have become commonplace, and even 8000 Hz wireless mice are no longer outlandish. Still, wired 8000 Hz mice continue to have their place, as all other things being equal, polling stability will always be superior over wireless, and of course, for those on a budget, a wired 8000 Hz mouse can be had for less than a wireless one.

The NZXT Lift 2 Ergo is one such budget 8000 Hz mouse, and on paper at least, it seems on par with its direct competitor, the Razer DeathAdder V3. Despite being a bit larger, the Lift 2 Ergo ends up marginally lighter than the DeathAdder V3, though the Lift 2 Ergo utilizes an open-bottom design, whereas the DeathAdder V3 has a solid shell all over. Build quality is mostly fine on my copy: a rattle comes from an indeterminable location when shaking, but there is no creaking or flexing when applying lateral pressure, and actuating the side buttons by pressing below them is impossible regardless of force used. I also have little to complain about the cable, which can be difficult to get right on an 8000 Hz wired mouse, as it needs to have sufficient shielding to ensure signal integrity at 8000 Hz, without becoming overly stiff. While not as flexible as the cable of the HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2, the cable of the Lift 2 Ergo is decently flexible, and roughly on par with that of the DeathAdder V3. The feet are made of white-dyed PTFE and glide quite well, but they do fall a bit short of the skates used on the DeathAdder V3.

Much like the DeathAdder V3, the Lift 2 Ergo utilizes optical switches for the main buttons, albeit ones from TTC. These previously have seen use on many other releases, such as from ROCCAT, Corsair, and recently Fantech. Getting these switches "right" can be tricky, and this proves true on the Lift 2 Ergo as well. The main issue isn't so much with the buttons themselves: while there is moderate pre- and post-travel, lateral button movement is kept to a minimum, and actuation rather snappy, at least for optical switch standards. Rather, the problem with the main buttons is their inconsistency in terms of actuation force. Essentially, only the top third of either the left or right main button will elicit a lighter actuation, whereas towards the back, actuation becomes much stiffer. The latter wouldn't be unusual, but the degree to which it becomes stiffer is. In addition, actuation also becomes stiffer the closer to the scroll wheel one presses, and there is an additional layer of inconsistency in that even when pressed on the same spot, actuation at times is much stiffer than normal. In summary, the main buttons are stiff more often than not, and only those with seriously large hands will be able to avoid the "stiff zone" entirely, as the Lift 2 Ergo already is an exceptionally long mouse to begin with. Another at least possible issue is getting a bad switch, which happens to be the case on my sample of the Lift 2 Symm. In my experience, the odds of that happening with TTC optical switches are decidedly non-zero, so this is something to keep in mind as well.

The button woes continue with the side buttons. For these, regular mechanical switches are used, and while their actuation point is mostly even, pre-travel is moderate, and more importantly, post-travel borders on massive. On my sample, I can press the buttons into the shell almost in their entirety, which is far from ideal. The scroll wheel isn't all that great, either: an encoder from TTC sees use, which is borderline loud, and more importantly, the noise generated by it is of the unpleasant kind, and it makes the scroll wheel feel "cheap," for lack of a better word. Tactility is average at best, too, so the scroll wheel as a whole isn't exactly prize-winning material.

Performance is largely in a good spot. CPI deviation is a bit higher than it should be, but rather easily corrected by lowering CPI accordingly in the software. General tracking is also fine, but weirdly enough, MotionSync seemingly only stays enabled up to 2000 Hz, whereas 4000 and 8000 Hz both have it disabled, with no way of changing that. This may actually be an oversight, but ultimately doesn't matter all that much, though due to the negative impact MotionSync has on motion delay, having it disabled all the way would be preferable. Polling is stable for 125, 250, 500, and 1000 Hz, but 2000 and 4000 Hz frequently have bouts of increased noise, and 8000 Hz often drops from the target interval of 0.125 us to 0.250 us, resulting in the target interval not being met on average. Motion delay at 8000 Hz sits at a very competitive 1.0 ms advantage over the Logitech G403 (control subject), and click latency fares even better: at 0.1 ms across all polling rates, the Lift 2 Ergo is on par with the very best 8000 Hz mice such as the DeathAdder V3 or Zaunkoenig M2K.

The software for the Lift 2 Ergo is NZXT CAM, which is similar to Corsair iCUE or ASUS Armoury Crate in that it is an all-in-one software suite for everything NZXT, including monitoring functions, RGB lighting control, and many other options. Accordingly, it comes as no surprise that the RAM footprint is rather substantial, topping out at close to 500 MB at times, and roughly half of that specifically for the mouse settings page. These are surprisingly barebones, as button remapping isn't possible for the left and right main buttons, and sensor settings such as MotionSync or ripple control are absent. Thankfully, saving settings to one of five on-board profiles is possible, so nothing prevents one from simply adjusting everything to one's liking and deleting CAM right after.

The Lift 2 Ergo is either too unremarkable or straight up worse than the DeathAdder V3 in most areas to really compete with it, but for those not willing to shell out the $69.99 asked for the latter, the Lift 2 Ergo may be a worthwhile option, especially for those with long yet skinny hands. The issues relating to the buttons in particular notwithstanding, for $49.99, there aren't that many better right-handed ergonomic, wired 8000 Hz options than the Lift 2 Ergo.