My Month With The Thrustmaster T150(Review)
How my time with the Thrustmaster T150 was tragically cut short
After a dreaded farewell to my Logitech Driving Force GT which served me for 4 fun years i decided to treat myself to a Thrustmaster T150 as my DFGT did not support the PS4.
1.First Impressions
I was pleased at the size and quality of the paddle shifters there were all impressive at first but what blew me away was the feel the wheel compared to the DFGT.GT6 was a lot easier to control as it didn’t fight back at you like the DFGT did.Driveclub was a joy as well a bit too joyful as i ended up spending the guts of 2 hours driving around a small chillian track in a Mclaren P1 GTR to be at the top,I’m 6 tenths off the lead if I can remember.The crew was fun to but lack of force feedback was really needed but it was an overall relaxing experience.
2.The price
Perfect (not really) but for the price range you can look no further but buy this wheel(because you cant)This is the only wheel in its price range and the next one(T300) is about double the price.If you want a wheel but cant afford or wont spend the money of a T300 i dont see why checking out the T150 would do any harm.
3.The pedals
If i’m truly honest the pedals are rubbish.It’s ability to remain in one position on a wooden floor is useless.The pedals are light which is good for transport but because of this I Constantly found myself relocating my pedals as they would move around with almost minimum effort.There are holes for clamping the pedals down to a stand which i recommend doing if one of these are in your possession.As for the feel they are decent but as for the size they are simply too small.I’m size 9.5 and felt my foot rubbing the brake as i pressed the accelerator.The pedals are light which is good for transport but because of there weight is also the reason that the pedals move around a lot.
4.Optional Extras.
Another kink in the T150’s armor.The options or 3 pedals and a manual stick shift are all there the only problem is the price.The 3 pedals(T3PA) is a wallet shattering £75 and The shifter(TH8A) is a ball breaking £100.Fortunatly there is an adaptor for logitech g27,g25 pedals to work but its still steep at $20 and finding used pedals is still an effort and really not that big of a money saver unless you own one of the logitech wheels.A cheaper shifter is needed.
5.The Cables.
The USB is fixed into the wheel along with the power cable.The USB one is long enough but the power cable is far too short for me to reach a power socket so i had to rely on an extension lead to access power but this became the least of my worries.
6.What happened?
After 2 weeks of use i began to notice that when all was plugged in to where they wer supposed to go the wheel wouldn’t turn on.After 2 minutes or so the wheel would burst into life.This shortly grew to 5 Minutes then 10,then 15 and eventually 30 Minutes of fidgeting with the cables the wheel would eventually come to life.The power cable was faulty. I had sent an email to Thrustmaster about the problem and made a video showing them (seen above) They had told me to return it to amazon B.T.W Thrustmaster’s support team all deserve a medal as they are possibly the best support team i have ever dealt with.Anyway back to my point returning the wheel to amazon became impossible as amazon made a new policy that you can only return it to them within 30 days after that you had to contact the maker of the product.In the end i got a refund as the wheel had a 2 year warranty.This refund had left me slightly out of pocket due to the appalling exchange rates so now I am broke without a wheel :(
Here is my wheel failing to work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R2KJflT9gM
7.What Now?
Now i am in a predicament.I have come to the conclusion that I’ll try to avoid getting another T150 if i can and now i shall start to save up for a better wheel.The T300 or the G29 are what I am aiming for.So far the logitech has cheaper options and better pedals but is failing to prove how well it is so far as the T300 has better rotation and quality according to reviews but falls down in pedals and over priced options.Ive also thought about getting a second hand t500rs if it’s possible as they are a serious piece of kit.Thanks for reading and please leave a comment below on your thoughts and if you can check out my youtube channel for a weekly video!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcna4FrWIQIJLqvsS2Y2Q8w
Comments
Hi, I recently got myself a G920 (G29 for Xbox), and i’ve been very happy with it,
Downsides are that it doesn’t include the shifter but as i have a working G27 shifter there’s no problem, also the lack of customizability on PC on the new software.
True but a new shifter is much cheaper than the one that thrustmaster makes lack of PC customisable features wouldn’t effect me that much as I don’t use my wheels on pc
My buddy lend me his T150 two weeks ago, but I don’t use it much because I can’t handle it. I’m playing Project Cars
I see in fairness the wheel is good it just suffers from reliablility issues
That name though! Hahaha
My conclusion is basically pretty much every game wheel is trash… bought several over the years. Returned the more expensive ones for refunds within days.
One issue is as you discovered with the pedal box -
I simply gave up and use the normal gamepad on my xbox one. I actually have better control of cars than when I tried a wheel.
Did you try the t500?
Exactly would it really be that more expensive to make the wheel life sized?
Need this
I’ve had around 5/6/7 g27/9s in my house with me and my bro because all have broken :-(
Were these due to reliablility,poor car or any other problems
I feel like the t300 is pointless, better get the t500, it comes with metal pedals, which are even better than the t3pa because you can stand them up (like a normal car setup) or have them in the formula position. You can still use the t500 on the ps3, pc and ps4
(edit: i checked the price of t500 vs 300 and the 300 is 100 quid cheaper, so dont know if its worth it anymore, when I bought my t500 it was on sale and got it for the price of t300)
Yes but it isn’t ps4 compatible (yet) and it has a rediculous price tag along with no shifter
What about fanatec? Sure they are more expensive, but most likely better quality.
It comes and goes in my mind I’m get put off by it’s lack of full comparability with a ps4 I hear it doesn’t have full force feedback but it might get some sort of patch