The Thrustmaster T248 is Good. But is it Worth $400?!
This is the Thrustmaster T248, the company's brand new entry-level force feedback wheel designed to dominate the low-budget sim racing market. If you ask me, it’s almost perfect but at $400, it stands in an awkward segment of the sim racing market. Today, I’ll be explaining exactly why as well as taking you all through its new quirks and features, its positives, its negatives, and so much more.
The Thrustmaster T248 is designed to replace the popular T150 and TMX force feedback wheel and is aimed directly against the Logitech G923. It comes in two versions. One works with the PlayStation 4 and 5 as well as PC and the other works with Xbox and PC. It's important to note that they both perform and look identical to each other. Thrustmaster was kind enough to send me one to review, but before some of you all click away, I could care less if it was sent to me for free. If it's a bad product, I’ll let everybody know like I've done many times in the past and I’ll be making the things I dislike about this wheel very clear throughout this review.
The T248 is a relatively small wheel at around 27cm in diameter, making it nearly identical in size to the Logitech G series wheels. From a design perspective, I among many others in the community initially did not like how this wheel looked. But in person, I’ve grown to like it. It has a modern yet sleek design and even looks similar to the steering wheel in my MX-5 Miata. This is a big upgrade compared to the kid-toy look and feel of the T150. However, I’m not a fan of how they went about creating the outer wheel rim. The outer part of the wheel, the part where your palm rests, is covered in soft leather which feels nice and is even relatively grippy. However, the inner half, the part where your fingers rest, is made from hard plastic. This causes the wheel rim to not only look a little strange, but it also drastically takes away from the premium feel of it once you're holding on to it. It's almost like the plastic is there to constantly remind you that this is a toy. I’m not sure why they didn't just completely wrap it in leather such as Logitech does other than to maybe save a few bucks in material costs. The rest of the wheel is also made almost entirely of plastic which is expected in an entry-level wheel. I will say however that by using different textures and finishes Thrustmaster did a fantastic job making this wheel look a lot more premium than your typical plastic wheel.
On it are 25 action buttons including 2 dual-position encoders and even a small display which is practically unheard of in a low-entry wheel. I’m a big fan of the display. It's a cool feature that although I don’t find particularly useful, makes the wheel look a little cooler. This display can feature a variety of telemetry data and you can switch through the various options by pressing the display button located on the wheel. Some of the information it can display is current speed, engine rpm, current position, number of laps, personal fastest lap, among a few other things. It's very important to note that this feature only works with a handful of games at this very moment. However, Thrustmaster is currently in the process of making this feature available on more and more titles so that by the time this wheel releases, or by the time you're reading this, a lot more games will have compatibility and all of those can be found on the official Thrustmaster website.
The wheel itself feels good to hold on to. It's ergonomically designed to sit well on your hands and all the buttons and the two paddle shifters are at close reach. The buttons themselves don’t necessarily feel special or tactile to press down or anything like that, but they ultimately do the job.
Moving on to the paddle shifters, this is without a doubt the part I hate most about the T248. Although they are heavily marketed as “tactical magnetic paddle shifters” they are far worse than the old T150 paddle shifters if you ask me. Now let me explain. Judging off feel alone, they do feel relatively good. They react quickly and allow you to shift up and down in a matter of milliseconds. However, they are obnoxiously loud. And by obnoxiously loud I mean obnoxiously in all caps. These paddle shifters are so loud that not only can you hear them from across the room and probably into the other room, but you can even hear them when you have your headphones on. But unfortunately, it doesn’t end there. Whilst the old T150 and TMX featured brushed metal, long paddles which not only looked cool but felt very nice to hold on to, the T248’s paddle shifters are short and chubby and made from plastic which severely takes away from the immersion and quality aspect of this wheel. In essence, I despise these paddle shifters and wish they simply used the same ones found in other Thrustmaster wheels.
Taking a look at the T248’s wheelbase, it kind of looks like what I’d imagine a Thrustmaster direct-drive wheelbase to look like. Here lies the hybrid drive force feedback mechanism which I’ll talk about soon. Unfortunately, this wheelbase does not have a quick release so you will not be able to swap wheel rims or anything of that manner which is expected but a little disappointing for a $400 product if you ask me. Underneath, you find where the power cable, USB cable, and even a port for the Thrustmaster handbrake or shifter (if you have one) plugs in. Moreover, here the included table clamp can be attached and you can also find mounting holes for those of you using this on a cockpit or wheel stand. The entire wheelbase is made from tough plastic and weighs less than you would expect.
Now let's get to the part you all have been waiting for. How does the Thrustmaster T248 and its hybrid drive force feedback technology perform in-game?
Without hesitation, I’ll say that at its max settings, this wheel provides more force feedback and resistance than most will ever need and especially more than any type of beginner will need. I didn’t find any information regarding the wheel's exact torque numbers, but it definitely feels more significant than something like the Logitech G29 and G920. This wheel however was surprisingly slow to snap back. What I mean by this, is that when you're turning and let go of the wheel in order to straighten out your car, the wheel didn't straighten out as fast as I would have liked. In that sense, it felt almost identical to the T150 but slower than the G29 which I would say is a better beginner drifting wheel. I should also mention that this wheel has a maximum rotation of 900 degrees.
Something that is heavily marketed about the T248 is its three unique force feedback settings. Within the T248's software, three force feedback presets are available. The first is 100% proportional to the force requested by the game which gives a linear feel to the driver. The second enhances the force feedback to give better skid control which is useful for rally driving and the third boosts the force feedback to enhance the feel of the road, bumps, curbs, and all those types of things. Now you all know I’m always completely honest with you all, and the truth is, as much as I tried and really want to say that I did, I could not feel a significant difference between all three presets no matter the game I was playing or all the fidgeting I did within the game settings. I’m not saying these presets don’t work, I just personally didn’t feel much of a difference between them so that’s all I’m going to say about that. Regarding the force feedback though, you've all seen me mention “hybrid-drive” a few times, but what does that even mean? So, from what I understand, it's just a term Thrustmaster uses to emphasize that this wheel has a mixed belt and gear force feedback mechanism to provide not only a smoother, more fluid driving experience, but limit the overall sound coming out of the wheelbase. And it certainly works as not only is this wheel significantly quieter than something like the G29 or even the T150, but it's also a lot smoother and less clunky than those. As I already said, the force feedback is good, I could argue that it's even really good, but unfortunately, the wheel is a bit slow to snap back and the presets didn’t have a significant impact from my experience. Regardless, for any beginner and probably even amateur, the T248’s force feedback capabilities will more than suffice.
Now let's talk about the included T3PM pedals which along with the wheel, are also brand new.
The T3PM pedals are a direct replacement to the now old but massively popular Thrustmaster T3PA’s and can be purchased separately for $130. Although they are not loadcell pedals, they do feature a lot of significant improvements over the old ones. For starters, instead of a typical potentiometer-based sensor, these use what Thrustmaster calls “H.E.A.R.T magnetic technology”. From my understanding, it uses magnetic sensors to transmit the signal of the pedals back to the game. Not only will this make them more precise to your inputs, but it’ll also significantly increase the pedals' long-term reliability as they won’t lose performance over time such as potentiometer sensors usually do.
Similar to the higher-end TLCM’s you can also interchange the springs and fine-tune the resistance of the brake pedal which is great as it’ll allow you to configure it to your liking. The default silver spring that comes installed requires too little force to push down in my opinion, so after using it for a while I interchanged it with the other optional spring that comes included which gave me a far better experience. The pedals themselves are made almost entirely of plastic with the exception of the metal pedal plates. Although they are made of plastic, I didn’t feel any flex or anything of that sort. Thrustmaster claims these pedals can withstand up to 440 pounds of force so although I don’t have the means to put that to the test, I don’t think any average sim racer will have a problem with their build quality, I certainly didn’t.
Something I wish these pedals had are integrated carpet spikes such as the one found in Logitech's pedals. This product is marketed towards beginner sim racers who probably don’t have a dedicated cockpit or wheel stand and will most likely place them down on a carpeted floor, so I’m not sure why Thrustmaster overlooked that. Overall, I’m a fan of the T3PMs, they’re definitely not on the same level as the higher-end T-LCMs but I was still able to adjust, feel comfortable, and hit some decent lap times with them which is what a decent pedal set is ultimately intended to do.
At the beginning of this review, I stated that the T248 stands at an awkward segment in the sim racing market, and here’s what I mean:
If the T150 and TMX do not get discontinued, they will continue to be Thrustmaster's primary entry-level wheels at their $200 price points. In this case, the T248 will be a step above those wheels. However, at $400, the T248 is competing against Thrustmasters' T300RS which although I’ve never owned nor used, seems like a better overall wheel on paper. So this is what I mean when I say that this wheel is very awkwardly priced.
Now, in terms of the title of this review. Is the T248 worth $400? Honestly, it's extremely difficult to give a firm yes or no. If you ask me, this wheel far surpasses the T150 and TMX and Logitech G29 and G920. But then again, it also costs just about double those. As much as I love Thrustmaster, everything they do for the sim racing community, and all the support they’ve given my channel, I honestly think this wheel is just a little bit too expensive for what it is. Although it provides fantastic force feedback, versatility, and adjustability, it has too much plastic, doesn’t allow users to interchange wheel rims, and isn’t as quick to react as other slightly more expensive offerings like the TS-XW making it very hard to justify at its current price point. However, if this wheel ever drops to around the $300 price bracket, it would be completely unrivaled and would be an excellent bang for your buck product. But right now, being completely honest, although it is a fantastic beginner's wheel, it's a bit too expensive.
