Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Best Gaming Steering Wheel for $100 (2022)”.
What is up folks how’s it going this watch from mw technology and today we’re going to be talking about some of the best budget friendly steering wheel options available for the pc and most of your gaming consoles. Now over the past several years, we’ve covered a lot of different steering wheels from top brands such as a fanatic that delivers some of the best consumer racing wheels out there on the planet to more mid-range models from thrustmaster and logitech. But let’s say you don’t have thousands of dollars to shell out on a fan, attack, setup or even a couple of hundred dollars to get yourself a g920 or a t300 rs. Let’S say you only have about a hundred dollars to spend.
Are there any good steering wheel options for that price point, and in this article, we’re gon na be taking a look at four different wheels to answer that exact question, but before we get into the nitty-gritty, we do have to mention our sponsor skillshare that made this Content possible now, if you don’t know already, skillshare is one of the biggest online learning communities out there with a wide range of topics ranging from personal growth management as well as business and creative endeavors. Skillshare is an excellent way to level up your existing skills. Get inspired or even learn something new with thousands of existing classes, as well as new premium classes being added each week to the site.
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That’S based around a professional mindset optimize your physical and digital workspaces. There’S also some interesting a discussion on how inspiration can be treated like a muscle where you train it in order to get better. Another fun course that i enjoyed quite a bit was on smartphone photography from dale mcmanus, where he goes through. The specific skill sets and general settings that you’re gon na need, in order to take some of the best stills possible on a smartphone. He specifically goes through the settings to get the best iphone shots possible, but many of the fundamental principles will apply to any general smartphone now, if you’re interested in checking out these classes or anything else on skillshare. If you go down in the description down below and click on, the link, the first 1000 subscribers will get access to skillshare premium for one month. We want to thank skillshare so much for sponsoring this content. Now, coming back to our budget-friendly steering wheels as you can see, we have four different options: one is the thrustmaster t80. Another is the hori racing wheel, apex officially licensed by playstation, and the other two are px n wheels.
Now the order that we’re going to discuss each wheel is from worst to best, so the first one is going to be my least favorite, which is going to be the pxn v3b slash v32. It’S going to be probably the cheapest steering wheel that you’re going to find out in the used and new market, typically well under 100 to 90 dollars, and it does have some interesting quarks. It has a built-in sequential knob shifter on the side as well as paddle shifters.
Everything is made out of plastic. Everything has a fairly toy like build quality and consistency to it. The steering wheel angle range is about 180 degrees.
It is a very lightweight at just around six and a half pounds now, like all the wheels on this list. The compatibility options are very well widespread from full pc to current and previous generation consoles. So that means you’ll have no problem in hooking this up to any pc with a usb type-a connection or any modern generation console such as playstation xbox nintendo switch included.
Now you have two primary mounting options: one is a suction cup method, where you have a series of fairly large suction cups, and if you have the right surface will stick on to a desk or table like surface and have a little to no movements. Although it’s not as reliable as actually having a clamp now it does utilize a u-clamp design where it bolts on to the bottom portion of a desk or table and locks on to the top portion of the wheel. Clamping down the wheel is definitely going to be a lot more secure, but for whatever reason, if you don’t have access to the bottom portion of your desk or table, you do have those suction cups as a mounting alternative.
Now the pedalboard on most pxn wheels are pretty much the same, regardless of the make, based on my experience and they’re, also very similar on the hoary wheel as well, where you basically have two pedals: one brake and accelerator with the same tension spring. So there’s no progression in the brake. You do, however, have a flip out extension to the pedalboard. That will add some security as well as grip to the pedal board, which is definitely needed, considering the fact that the pedalboard is very lightweight due to its all plastic construction and cheap design. Now i did all my testing using project cars and a dirt 4 on the pc, since i’m very familiar with the games in terms of how they should feel on a decent steering wheel from a tracking perspective and using the pxn v3 wheel on the xbox.
One configuration actually worked fairly well, it eliminated most of the dead zones, and the steering wheel also has onboard sensitivity, adjustments from a low, medium and high and on the high settings it improved the overall precision and tracking performance of the steering angle. It’S definitely not as reliable and as precise as a more higher end steering wheel or some of the other wheels that we’re going to talk about on our list, but it’s definitely not bad and it beats using a regular thumbstick controller. Now it is important to note that this wheel, utilizes two input modes, an x and a d mode. The x mode is designed for more modern gaming titles, supposedly the d mode for more legacy titles. I definitely made a huge difference on pc based on my testing, but perhaps those two modes will make more of a difference on the xbox or playstation, depending upon what game you’re playing now. Even though this is a cheaper steering wheel, you do actually have a dual force feedback motor built inside over here. It gives you a rudimentary rumbling sensation given on how the game is programmed for road feel as well as impacts. The torque on the wheel is fairly static, where it doesn’t really change depending on what car you’re using or what steering angle you’re using on high speed corners. It’S definitely not going to give you the same level of immersion and force feedback is what you’re going to find on the mid-range models from logitech and thrustmaster, but definitely not bad. For the price point now move over. Let’S talk about the pxn v900. Pretty much fundamentally is exactly the same as the v3b, with the same overall plasticky build quality, the same mounting options with suction cups, as well as that clamp under mount a design. You also have the same dual motor force, feedback system and the same pedal board. The key difference is the rotation range. This is a 270 to 900 degree, wheel, optimized for truck simulators or any game that utilizes a greater range of steering rotation.
Furthermore, you do, however, lose the sequential knob shifter found on the v3, but you still have the paddle shifters included on the wheel and uh pxn actually has a variant called the v9, which has kind of everything in it a 900 degree steering wheel. A three pedal board design with a clutch included, as well as a side h pattern shifter, definitely interesting option if you want a more complete manual driving experience, but the price point is a little bit higher from 180 to 200 dollars. Now, let’s move on to the hori racing wheel, apex now, as we mentioned earlier before, this is officially licensed by playstation. They actually have a more modern playstation 5 oriented design, but it has pretty much the same fundamental features as this playstation 4 model. That also has full compatibility with the ps5 and indeed the pc. Now you can find these in walmart and many other of the big box store readily available for under a hundred dollars and there’s a lot of great things about this wheel.
The build quality is mostly plastic, but it’s a little bit better put together and the fit, and finish is less toy like than the pxn wheels we encountered. On top of that, it has a nice rubberized grip, a larger, a 28 centimeter diameter wheel, which definitely feels a little bit more life-sized. The mounting options are a little bit more secure with actual metal parts in the clamp itself, making it a little bit more durable and resilient to tight clamping options, especially great for a ultra low budget, sim racing setup. The controller layout is very playstation centric.
I do like the fact that it has programmable r1 and r2 buttons directly, where your thumbs should be very easy. Access for those the wheel also has built-in large paddle shifters. That gives you a nice tactile feedback when you initiate an up or down shift. The range of motion on the wheel is 180 to 270 degrees, perfect for most sim racing.
But if you’re interested in truck construction or farm driving simulators that 270 degrees might be a limiting factor for some, as i mentioned earlier in this article, the hoary paddle board is pretty much the same as our pxn pedal board, a design where you have two pedals Brake and accelerator, with the exact same tension on the spring and a flip out extension piece added security and grip with the all plastic design. Now the driving experience of the racing wheel, apex by hori, is actually very similar to what we encounter with the pxn, both in terms of the force feedback system being fairly rudimentary and the overall tracking performance of the steering angle being fairly consistent with those budget-friendly models. From pxn as well, nothing really stand out and definitely similar to wheels. Within this price point and honestly, the only real advantage from this wheel compared to the pxn is the build.
Quality is a little bit higher the button and the fit, and finish is just a little bit better and if you’re going to pay, the same amount might as well get uh this superior product. From that perspective, now last but not least, i want to talk about my favorite budget oriented steering wheel and that has to be the thrustmaster t80 ferrari. F88 gtb edition. This wheel is officially licensed by ferrari and has a replica version of the 488 wheel in a 10 scale.
Has a 28 centimeter a diameter similar to what we found with the hori, but, unlike the other wheels we talked about, this doesn’t feel like a plastic toy. Rather a semi serious wheel, they actually want to do some racing on the wheel itself is textured by a rubber cladding that provides a decent level of grip as well as 11 action buttons, a full d-pad as well as two large size, all metal, sequential paddle shifters. In addition, that you also have the best pedalboard combination that you’re going to find in this price point where the pedalboard is still made out of plastic, but a little bit more heftier heavier as well as the fact that the brake pedal actually has some progression towards It and a little bit more tension than what you would counter with the accelerator, something we haven’t encountered in other budget oriented pedal boards. This obviously, is a very important, especially when you want to simulate a real driving experience compatibility-wise.
This a t-80 is specifically for the pc and playstation consoles, including ps4 and ps5. There are variants of this wheel from thrustmaster that will also work with the xbox consoles, but not specifically, this one mounting options are fairly conventional with a standard clamp design for mounting. Underneath a desk or table surface, you can also mount the wheel directly on a custom rig using the available holes on the underside of the steering wheel base. Beyond that, thanks to the assortment of accessories available from thrustmaster, you can actually add a h pattern.
Shifter, as well as a three pedal pedal board down the road, if you want to upgrade your racing setup now, the reason why the t80 is my favorite budget oriented wheel is the fact that it actually tracks and drives very similar to the t300 rs and t150 From a controllability standpoint where you can adjust dead zone sensitivity and the overall tracking experience is very accurate and reliable, similar to what you’re going to find with those mid-range racing wheels, the rotation angle is rated at 240 degrees again, not the widest for truck simulators, but Perfectly fine for racing applications. Now one of my favorite features of the t80 is regarding its bungee cord system, which basically simulates the heaviness that you’re going to feel when turning a steering wheel. It is automatically re-centering it’s linear in terms of nature. So when you turn it, you get that kind of same heaviness throughout its rotation range, which definitely adds a level of realism. Unfortunately, it can’t be adjusted in game since it’s not controlled by a motor or any kind of dynamic system. It’S an analog system nonetheless, but definitely does the job well for the price point now, unfortunately, one of the biggest downsides of the t80 is the fact that it has no force feedback system no motors for rumbling, it’s absolutely dead when it comes to any kind of Vibration or force feedback that could be uh, definitely a big turn off for uh some users out there. But for me personally, i think the overall controllability aspect of the wheel and the feel of the bungee cord system and the overall pedal board combination fit and finish.
Overall, serious nature of the wheel definitely makes up for that lack of force feedback. Now the price point on the t80 is around 120 to 130 dollars, depending upon where you’re getting it and things like that check out the description down below for the latest pricing. Uh details, but i think at that kind of uh price point of just around 100 to 130 is really hard to go wrong, especially considering all the positive aspects we mentioned earlier.
But besides that guys, that’s really. It definitely love to hear your thoughts on what stream will you’re using right now. Do you think it’s even worth it at a hundred dollars price point uh, or are you better off with just using your standard controller for most of your driving games and then perhaps saving down the road for a more mid-range steering wheel model, definitely love to know What you guys think, please give us a thumbs up if you haven’t done so already subscribe to the website and make sure you have push notifications, uh turned on on our videos, so click that bell and if you’re interested in skillshare check out the description down below Big thanks to you guys for all your support and we’ll see you real soon in the next one. Take care.
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