Thrustmaster T150 Racing Wheel Review – Steering You in the Right Direction

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We have been testing out Thrustmaster’s mid-level PlayStation and PC compatible T150 with force feedback. Is it worth the price or are you better off sticking with a controller?

Read on to find out

As we pointed out in our recent Assetta Corso review, racing video games generally fall into two categories: arcade racers and simulators. While arcade racers generally don’t benefit from using a steering wheel accessory, games like Assetto Corso and FI 2016, full on simulators if you want them to be, do. These types of games were designed to be enjoyed as if you were driving the real thing, and a Dualshock just doesn’t do them justice.

Thrustmaster, as a brand, has a long history of creating quality gaming peripherals. From joysticks and flight controls, to steering wheels and driving accessories. They recently sent us several items to test out and review and we are starting with the Thrustmaster T150 Force Feedback, PlayStation branded steering wheel. While this isn’t the cheapest wheel they have on the market, it’s probably the best bang for your buck if you’re on a tight budget. Priced at US$199, it’s not exactly cheap but is a great option for sum games on a PlayStation product and/or a PC.

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Right out of the box you can tell this is a quality made product. It has some weight to it, and doesn’t feel like a cheap plastic peripheral. It was packaged tightly, with plenty of protection surrounding it. The wheel is branded with the PlayStation logo and has a PS4 share button and has an options button. The only thing missing is the touchpad and a headphone jack. We ended up using a Dualshock in conjunction with the wheel as that is how we use our HyperX headphones for multiplayer chat. A headphone jack would have been a nice addition, but I’m not sure how they could have incorporated one while keeping the wires out of your way.

The wheel has upgradeable firmware and is preinstalled with PS3/PS4 software so that it is instantly recognized when plugging it into a USB port on your console. There is a slider switch on the wheel for choosing between the PS3 and PS4, so make sure it is set to the console you’re using. We tried the wheel out with both consoles and the PC (the switch needs to be set to PS3 for the PC) and really fell in love with it. On the PS3 we played Gran Turismo 5 & 6 and Driver San Francisco. For the PS4 we spent hours playing Project Cars, Driveclub, Assetto Corso, F1 2016 and Dirt Rally. The wheel works with so many games, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to try them all.

T150 & TH8A Add-on
T150 & TH8A Add-on

The wheel uses a mixed belt-pulley and gears system that allows for smoother, more fluid and less noisy gaming than one with helical gears. The force feedback does a great job of helping you feel the roads and feel your current traction situation. Racing around Sonoma in a’15 Mustang GT in Project Cars, you can feel everytime your rear-end breaks out and you know when you need to lay off the throttle a little bit and counter steer. Playing Dirt Rally, you can feel the ruts in the road as you scream down a dirt road at top speed and you can feel when you are getting too loose.

The wheel comes with a standard two pedal system that works OK. They are a little light-weight and tend to move around if you don’t have them mounted to anything. They would have benefited from some added weight built into them, as we found ourselves constantly moving them back to where we wanted them. Thrustmaster also sent us their 3 pedal T3PA add-on and TH8A shifter so the 2 pedal system went back in the box eventually.

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The wheel mounted OK to our desk, but finding something to mount it to for the console proved to be a bit of a challenge. There are plenty of wheelstands on the market that would have worked, but the cheapest one is $100 and we didn’t want to wait around for shipping. Luckily we had some lumber lying around, and I’m a bit of a handy man, so I built one for us to use. Nothing too fancy, but it worked perfectly and didn’t cost us anything.

Thrustmaster continues to create great products and the T150 lives up to their standards. If you are in the market for a great wheel at a decent price, you won’t be disappointed with this one.

Louis Edwards

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