UHK keyboard owners — opinions, feedbacks

[fossilcodger]

Hi everybody, excuse me my bad English... The reason why I opened this topic, because I got an "Ultimate Hacking Keyboard". (UHK, in short). Somebody who had preordered it, got, but then soon sold on Ebay... I purchased. Now I'm writing this topic on this keyboard.
It is a very tricky gadget... I'm absolutely not surprised that the former owner sold it. It is true that the item seems extremely durable, and has many, many good and astonishing features, even so, it is undeniable that it need lot - considerably lot amount of time - in order to be accustomed with it. The topmost challenge is - at least for me - is the socalled "mousing". Especially because formerly I have been using a "Logitech K400" wireless keyboard, which has built-in touchpad, and I think that thouchpad is very useful and "easy-to-handle". Compared with that Logitech keyboard, UHK is very high, and now I must change actually all my accustomed "behavior" against the keyboard. So, I like it basically but it is sure this keyboard is designed not for a common user, just for the very decided/determined ones.
I opened this topic in order to read the opinions from even another UHK owners, and to collect it in one forumplace the good tips and tricks, and so on.

[algernon]

My Mom uses an UHK, and is very happy with it. She does not use the mouse keys, she has a Kensington Orbit trackball for mouse-y purposes. She got used to it within an hour or so, but she had one huge advantage: the last time she had a keyboard on her own was in the last millennia, so she didn't need to unlearn anything. All she had to do is find a comfortable placement for the UHK, get accustomed to the homing keys, and off she went. She's also using the stock firmware and layout, never configured or changed anything, doesn't use the layers much either. She doesn't type fast (30WPM or so), but she never did, and doesn't need to either.

She loves the feel of it, and that it can be split, and that it is compact. She prefers it over ergo boards because it's more conventional with its horizontal stagger. She did not find my ErgoDox EZ or Model01 comfortable to use, so the UHK is just perfect for her. Oh, and the wrist rests are very good, she says.

[fossilcodger]

Well, perhaps the difference between me and your mom that I was very accustomed with the Logitech K400 keyboard(s) - more than 5 years... and I used them in many hours per days! So, I am a "very experienced" in it, and the "reprogramming" of my "brain circuits" is not an easy task in these circumstances. However I have to admit that I too like UHK, because of its many features, especially the reprogrammable layers. I did even - just for curiosity - create from the right half a "single handle" keyboard, of course with a very strange keyboard layout. Now, if I'll lose my left hand eventually, even then I can use my computer!

[zartc]

I own an UHK.

Everything you could read about how sturdy it is, how beautiful it is, how feature-full it is, how great it is...  is true

BUT here is what I dislike about the UHK:

- The missing Fkeys row. I knew that the UHK would be a 60% keyboard, but I didn't realized how much the absence of the FKey row would be a handicap for me before i had the keyboard in front of me. As a developer I'm using FKeys for numerous task all day long, be it refactoring things in the source code, opening/closing/switching panes and panels, stepping through code. The absence of the FKey row on the UHK force me to use the mod key to access any FKey, and this, my friend, was a real pain. Especially when the function I wanted to reach was already mapped to a combination like CTRL + SHIFT + F6. I know I could have remap the function to another key but I do not want to do this because 1) It would require retraining and 2) I will be lost when working on someone else computer and others would be lost when attempting to work on my computer.  Now I know that a 60% keyboard is not a good format for developing, I need a least a 75%.


- the stiffness of the switches - I ordered my UHK with brown cherryMX switches and I was badly surprised by their stiffness. My vortex race3 (at work) and my CM MasterKey-S (at home) are also CherryMX Brown and I'm very accustom to the response of their keys, but on the UHK, boy, it's a complete other story. I typed for years on the Logitech K750 Wireless Solar Keyboard which have scissor style switch with no more than 2mm course before bottoming, so I naturally developed a very light touch. On the UHK I could hardly push the keys hard enough to bottom them out while typing normally, I had to make a conscientious effort to push the key enough to feel the actuation point. Needless to say that after 20mn of typing on this keyboard, my finger hurts and I was harassed.

I leaved the keyboard on my home desktop for about 15-20 days, thinking I would eventually get used to its idiosyncrasy, but nah.
I finally packed it back inside its beautiful box, hide it away in my treasure chest, and switched back to my vortex race3 and CM-MasterKey-S.


My personal conclusion is:
- If you are a good typist, working alone, never having to switch to someone else keyboard and if you have many-many hours to train yourself then the UHK might be a/the keyboard for you.
- If you are not a talented typist, if you have to regularly help other people on their machine/keyboard (or if you have other peoples coming to your machine/keyboard) then the UHK is probably not the more comfortable choice.

The UHK is a fantastic keyboard but not for everybody, and not for every purpose.

If someday Laszlo decide to produce a 75% UHK, I would certainly buy one again to see if it is a better fit to developers.

ZC.