Many who have skipped the previous pages would take one look at the price point of the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard and immediately balk at it or, worse, dismiss it. It would be easy to do so, too, especially considering we have covered keyboards that do a good job at less than a fifth the price. But then again, we should really be comparing the UHK to other ergonomic-centric keyboards, such as the ErgoDox EZ, Kinesis Freestyle Edge, or Mistel MD650L Barocco. All of these cost about the same as the UHK when configured to the same extent of functionality where applicable, with the Mistel offering being less than the others but also more limited in what it can do. All of these keyboards are also low volume products, and many in this category tend to be crowd-funded, too. The UHK is no exception with its successful campaign that showed that there is definitely a market for such keyboards.

Marketing itself, to those who are unaware of such products, is perhaps the biggest challenge to UHK, which is where reviews such as this come into play. There is no doubt a high barrier to entry simply due to pricing, and especially so when you realize the company offers some fantastic accessories that cost extra. Another challenge is getting people used to not only the split keyboard design, but also the 60% form factor with fewer keys and a modified ANSI/ISO layout. I can say confidently thus that UHK has done an excellent job with their interactive setup guide that walks the customer through everything needed to get running with the keyboard, including demo sessions to test out settings for the various keyboard and mouse actions mapped to the keyboard, as well as going through the UHK Agent configurator to customize the keyboard to their desire. The onboard LED display is also extremely useful during the first week or two and part of the added cost of the keyboard that is not present on the other competing solutions in this market segment.

UHK Agent is openware, as is the philosophy behind the entire keyboard as a whole. The company makes it extremely easy to get the keyboard with the switch, case, layout, and keycaps of your choice and then makes it just as easy to take it apart and turn things around if you so desire. There were delays in getting the keyboard out to the backers, which did hurt user interaction for configuration, but the current version of UHK Agent is good enough to meet most people's need. The stock keycaps are really the main issue for people who are looking into a keyboard such as the UHK, however, and I encourage the company to explore alternatives sooner rather than later. I acknowledge also that the add-on modules coming up are a higher priority, however, and they will go towards making the UHK an even better one-size-fits-all solution than it already is.