Best Fanatec Wheels in 2021 - Fanatec Wheel Buyer's Guide

hey guys will here so with the phonetic csl dd expected to launch for pre-order pretty much any day now we know there's going to be a lot of people that will be looking at getting into the fnatic ecosystem for the very first time as well as some people that will be looking at expanding their wheel collection so what we're going to do today is run you through at a top level pretty much every single wheel that fnatic currently offers in the ecosystem as well as a couple of wheels that they've offered historically over the last couple of years too now we know a lot of people will be looking at buying brand new some people will be looking at the second hand market too and there is a few stock issues at the moment i have spoken to fnatic this morning to sort of clarify what's going on around that too so we'll cover that in a little bit of detail today for you guys in the video too now we do of course have far more detailed dedicated review videos for most of the wheels that we're going to be taking a look at today we do also have a written guide on our website too for those of you who prefer to learn in that manner but the aim today is to give you a good understanding of the ecosystem what's compatible with what and what is going to suit your needs and budget best so let's get stuck into it okay so the first thing to understand here is the individual components that actually go into creating a phonetic wheel so when you jump on the phonetic website and click on the steering wheel section all the wheels that you see under the main section before you get to accessories all come with everything that you need to get up and running now there are two different types of wheels within here if you have a look at say a formula style wheel for example it actually comes pre-assembled and it comes with everything that you need straight out of the box so you literally take it out of the box plug it in and you're good to go and if you have a look at say the wrc wheel for example exactly the same again it's all kind of one unit and you you have everything you need to just get up and running same deal with the bmw and the mclaren wheels 2. now if you go with something like a 911 gt3 wheel for example you can see this is actually made up of individual components which are available separately so we've got our podium hub we've got our advanced paddle module we've got our button module endurance on the front and then the rim itself so when you purchase one of these wheels it actually comes in individual components which you have to put together yourself it's not difficult to do and again we do have guide videos for pretty much every single wheel showing you how to do that as well so it's very easy to do but just something to understand straight out of the box and then if you do want to customize things beyond that there are a range of rims which are available as separate accessories and those can be combined with different configurations of button modules shifters and hubs to basically create the wheel that you want at the price point which is going to suit you best now it is important to note that generally if you do it that way it does end up being more expensive than the kind of bundles that you can purchase as a standalone wheel so do just keep that in mind it is also very important to look at compatibility too when we're looking at these wheels so the important thing to understand when it comes to compatibility is that every single wheel is compatible with pc of course playstation compatibility comes from a security chip within the wheelbase itself not the wheel so any wheel that you purchase as long as it's combined with a ps compatible wheelbase will also be playstation compatible with xbox it's the opposite though the security chip is actually inside the wheel itself so just make sure you check on the fnatic website that the wheel that you're purchasing is in fact compatible with xbox if you are planning on using it on an xbox console with playstation compatibility it's pretty straightforward as long as you've got a ps compatible wheelbase any wheel that you pair with that wheelbase will automatically work on your playstation but again just check the website it is pretty clear there you'll see the three little icons one for xbox one for playstation one for pc compatibility is also listed pretty clearly in the product details as well if you scroll a little bit further down the page so just make sure you check that before you hit the buy button you don't want to end up buying a brand new wheel and then finding that it's not compatible with your console but look it's pretty self-explanatory just make sure you take the time to check and you shouldn't have any issues there so now that we understand compatibility and the individual components that go into making a fanatic wheel this is a good point to pause and just quickly talk about availability and stock because i know a lot of wheels have been disappearing from the online store recently now the reason for that is there's been a stock shortage when it comes to the xbox hubs as well as podium hubs so pretty much every wheel that relies on those individual components has disappeared from the web store while they get those back in stock now from what i understand and i have spoken to fnatic just this morning they are planning on bringing those products back now they have talked a little bit about the new qr2 system as well which is going to be releasing at some point this year there's not a whole lot of detail around exactly how that works just yet we did see it kind of teased with the new bmw m4 gt3 wheel that's going to be the first product i believe that will feature that new quick release but the plan is to have interchangeable quick releases between the qr1 which is the existing system and the qr2 system so if we have a look at the podium hub for example you can see on the back of this we've got a removable quick release mechanism and you would have seen this in some of our previous videos where we swapped out the simplified quick release which comes with the mclaren gt3 wheel the wrc wheel and the csl hub for the metal style quick release and you can actually see on the csl hub here we've actually swapped that for the metal ones so there are a couple of reasons why you might want to do that we'll talk about that a little bit later on in the video too but essentially what will happen is once the qr2 system is available that will become an interchangeable quick release option as well and i'm not sure exactly how that's going to be made available i believe it may end up being a system where you can choose when you purchase the hub or the wheel what type of quick release you want to purchase with it and from my understanding it will of course also be upgradeable on the wheelbase side as well because obviously a qr2 wheel side isn't going to be compatible with the qr1 so you're going to need to have the same system on both sides of course but we'll cover that in more detail once we know exactly what's going on there but just so you've got in the back of your mind there is going to be some sort of an upgrade there that's available to this qr2 system and i believe that it's going to be something that can just be bolted onto the back of the wheels that allow you to do that now importantly there if you have a look at the xbox hub you can see on this one the quick release isn't actually interchangeable so i think we might actually see a revised version of this hub with an interchangeable quick release on the back of it but again that is just purely my own speculation based off my own understanding what's going on so i could be completely wrong there so as of the time of making the video depending on the region that you're in will determine what's available to you but i know for u.s region in particular the podium and the xbox hubs are both out of stock at this point in time so let's move on now into some recommendations we'll start off by looking at the three different versions of hubs which are available then we'll move into some of the standalone and packaged wheel combinations so let's start off by looking at the csl universal hub we reviewed this one quite recently on the channel and look while we were pretty impressed with it overall and we thought this was a good gateway product into the fnatic ecosystem really kind of saw this as being more a means to adapt an existing wheel into the phonetic ecosystem so say for example you might already have a thrustmaster or a logitech system that you've upgraded to some sort of an aftermarket wheel and you're looking at a way of adapting that wheel into the fnatic ecosystem this would be a good choice for that the weak point when it came to this product was just the shifters really we were quite disappointed with just the amount of flex that they had from side to side when you compare that to you know something like even just a logitech g27 there there's a lot more flex in there and that was really the weakness of this product but other than that pretty impressive products it works for quite a large variety of different wheels as well we've actually been using this with a flat two wheel which as you can see here bolts on the front pretty cleanly and there's enough room in there to get your thumbs around and it's quite comfortable you can reach the shifters and everything quite comfortably as well this is also made quite versatile by the fact that it can slide in and out like this as well so that allows us to use it on wheels all the way up to about 320 millimeters if you go up to something like the classic two wheel for example which is 350 millimeters you can see it starts to get a little bit more of a reach you can see it is still possible to reach the shifters but a little bit more difficult you kind of have to rotate your hands around to reach the buttons so not really intended for wheels this large i'd say 320 millimeters would probably be about the limit of where you'd want to go with this hub but nonetheless if you already have a collection of existing wheels that you're wanting to adapt across into the fnatic exo system then i think that this is a pretty good choice it does have the standard 70 by 6 millimeter stud pattern on the front as well as the three by 50 millimeter stud pattern so it is quite versatile in that regard as well but yeah look ultimately just let down by the quality of the shifters i think otherwise it would have been a really great product but you know just that is something that detracts from the overall experience so that's the csl universal hub then we step up into the xbox universal hub which is the club sport range so this is a little bit more versatile obviously this does add xbox compatibility as well this one is only ps4 compatible and pc compatible assuming again of course that you have a ps4 compatible wheelbase this one does add the xbox compatibility as well and that's actually unique to this particular hub as well the podium hub isn't xbox compatible so if you do need xbox compatibility this is your only option when it comes to phonetic hubs so this one is quite difficult to put together it's quite fiddly and quite cumbersome but it is very versatile as a result so you can adjust and adapt these button configurations to suit pretty much any wheel that you want so all the way through from something like a flat two for example you can see that lays out pretty nicely and we can go all the way up to something like our 350 millimeter classic two wheel without too many problems again there is a bit of a stretch to get to the individual buttons but the shifters reach out quite a bit further there as you can see now just on the subject of the shifters as well those with the k9 may have noticed we have actually upgraded the shifters on this particular hub these are the club sport magnetic paddle module upgrade and these are a really nice upgrade by default that hub comes with very similar shifters to what we have on our 918 rsr wheel and you can see those have got quite a lot more throw these are just simple spring loaded shifters that do feel a lot more toy like than their magnetic counterparts that we get with the club sport magnetic paddle module so again we do have a review video dedicated to that upgrade specifically what i will call out here is that although it is a nice high quality upgrade it is quite expensive and there is the option of aftermarket magnetic paddle upgrades as well which we have reviewed on the channel previously too so if you wanted to save a little bit of money there get the feeling of magnetic shifters without the cost of the official phonetic upgrade then definitely check out our review video on aftermarket magnetic paddle module upgrades so that brings us up to our podium hub obviously part of the podium range so this looks a little bit more fancy it's all metal construction here as you can see or billet aluminium on the back here again we have our 70 and our 50 millimeter stud patterns for compatibility with a wide range of wheels so again you can bring across aftermarket wheels into the phonetic ecosystem using this now the one thing that i will mention here which is a bit of a trap is that as you can see there's no lcd and no buttons or anything which come with this and the shifters are an optional upgrade for this as well so when you buy the podium hub on its own it doesn't come with any shifters you can then choose whether you want to go with the advanced paddle module or just the club sport magnetic paddle module if you don't need the extra buttons and analog paddles so what that means is that there's no way of accessing the phonetic tuning menu off the wheel itself which of course is one of the things that we love most about the phonetic ecosystem here so it's a little bit strange that there isn't a easy and relatively affordable upgrade that just allows us to have the same functionality as we get with say one of these ones for example we can see we've got the buttons in the little lcd readout for both the xbox and the csl now we do of course have the option of the button module endurance which just plugs in by a little usbc connection on the bottom here plugs in just there but this is a very very expensive upgrade it adds a lot of other additional functionality as well that people might not need and if all you want is just to be able to access that tuning menu then you know this is really kind of overkill for that purpose alone now we do have the option of the relatively cheap cluster pack which is these buttons that we can see here which you can plug directly into the podium hub but what i would really love to see given that that doesn't give us access to the tuning menu at all is some sort of an intermediate product somewhere between the button module endurance and the functionality that we have here with our xbox hub and our csl hub just to give us a nice cheap way of accessing that tuning menu through the podium hub i would have expected to see that by now seeing as the podium hub has been out for a couple of years now but so far there has been nothing so just be aware of that as well if you are purchasing a podium hub to bring across one of your existing wheels you will have the additional cost of shifters some sort of a button module as well at the moment the only button module that is compatible is the button module endurance which is quite expensive so unless you're not needing any additional buttons or you're using some sort of wheel that plugs into usb directly to your pc then you are going to be slightly limited in the functionality that you get with the podium hub and it is important to note as well that even though this is a standard usbc connection on the bottom here and actually we should mention that with the other two as well this has a usb a connection on the bottom here and i think that this guy yeah this guy has a usbc connection on the top as well those are a proprietary interface for connecting future peripherals from fnatic that don't exist yet so it's not as simple as just being able to plug in a aftermarket wheel via those ports and expecting it to just work through the wheelbase it's not a standard usb connection so i wanted to make sure that was really clear for you guys as well so in terms of comparison between the three i think it's really hard to go past the xbox universal hub at this point in time at least simply because it does have the upgradeable shifters so you can install the club sport magnetic paddle module or even the advanced paddle module should you wish to do so it does come with the cluster pack as well comes with lcd and access to the tuning menu and because of the way you can adjust and you know move things around to suit pretty much any wheel it really is the most versatile of the three i do really like the design of the csl universal hub but those shifters really do let it down and again with the podium hub although it is a really nice premium looking product without that functionality of being able to access the tuning menu without having to spend so much more money on the button module endurance just to be able to access the tuning menu which again when it comes to the phonetic ecosystem is just a fundamental part of what makes it such a popular choice so yeah i really do hope that we see some sort of a product there pretty soon that allows us to do that without having to spend the kind of money that's required to get our hands on one of these so let's move on now into our recommendations when it comes to individual wheels so what we have in front of us here is a selection of wheels that i think offer the best value for money kind of at each price point throughout the phonetic ecosystem so starting off at the wrc and mclaren gt3 wheels and ending at the podium porsche 911 gt3 wheel so a little bit later on in the video we'll also have a look at some of the more custom wheels that we can build using some of their other accessories as well but let's start off by running through these so the wrc we'll start off with this guy i was originally not super impressed with this when i unboxed it just because it does feel a lot more toy like than a lot of the other wheels that i've experienced in the phonetic ecosystem remembering that when i first got into fnatic gear i started off with the bmw gt2 wheel and the formula carbon wheel those were the first two wheels that i purchased so this was a little bit of a step down from those in terms of just the quality and the experience straight out of the box but i came to quite like this wheel simply because it does offer quite a lot of versatility at a relatively affordable price point the shifters themselves are actually a really nice feeling as well so they've got a nice action to them and again we do have a detailed review video on all of these wheels which you can learn a little bit more from but look in terms of value for money it offers everything that you need xbox compatibility as well 300 millimeter diameter so it's nice and easy to use and being completely round as well means that it's great to use for rally style driving drifting anything where you need to slip the wheels through your hands but because it's only 300 millimeters it's also quite precise and quite nimble for things like formula style driving as well so i would say if you're after the cheapest possible wheel from fnatic that is the most versatile maybe you can only afford one wheel in the range this is probably the wheel to get you can also upgrade it to the metal quick release as well as you can see we have installed on our mclaren wheel which we'll have a look at in just a moment but look i mean i know a lot of people that ordered the wrc wheel as well as the mclaren gt3 wheel just kind of assumed that they needed the metal quick release out of the box just because it's you know more expensive and therefore assumed to be better in my experience at least there's minimal flex with either of these and again we did look at this in detail when we reviewed both of these wheels so if you want to understand more about that definitely check out those more detailed videos i don't think the majority of people are going to feel the need to do that but yeah look this wheel very good versatility very good all-rounder it's got all the functionality that you need and yeah i really don't see any reason not to recommend this i think particularly for the csld the wrc wheel and the mclaren gt3 wheels are going to be the obvious choices for you know people that are looking to step into the phonetic ecosystem for the first time and then as the bug bites and you're wanting to upgrade a little bit further you can look at some of these other wheels so the mclaren gt3 v2 wheel in my opinion is one of the best value for money sim racing wheels on the market in general even outside of the phonetic ecosystem now the reason i say that is this offers a massive amount of functionality for the money that you're paying for it now they have cut some corners in terms of the build quality it is a plastic construction rubber grips you know you can see plastic paddles on the back and so forth but again when it comes to overall quality and providing all the things that are important for sim racing this really is hard to go past in terms of value for money so we've got a seven way funky switch here for navigating menus same deal with the wrc wheel of course as well we've got push buttons we've got rotary encoders multi-position switches toggle switches we've got analog paddles on the back here as well we can assign that to a two-stage clutch brake and throttle you name it you can do it with this wheel we've got magnetic paddles here as well the shifter can be used as a push pull configuration as well so you can see there it rocks from side to side like so and you can see we have upgraded this to the metal quick release simply because tom's been using this as his daily driver wheel on his dd-1 now the main difference between the glass infused plastic simplified quick release and the metal quick release which is available as an optional upgrade is just the ability to unlock full torque in the dd1 and dd2 so if we have a look at the quick release itself we've pulled one off here for you guys you can see there's a little plastic tab here which actually activates a little switch inside the wheel and that tells it that it's using the simplified quick release so when we change over to the metal quick release that button's no longer being pressed and that unlocks full torque now quite a few people have just cut off that little plastic tab to unlock full talk without changing the quick release over that's not something that i would recommend doing because i have seen people have issues with cracked quick releases and obviously it voids warranty as well you can do damage to the pins internally as well if you end up with a wheel twisting on the base it's obviously going to put load through those pins and that is going to lead to you having a bad day but for a csldd or any of the other wheelbases in the phonetic range then you probably aren't going to need to upgrade to the metal quick release in my opinion and being a 300 millimeter diameter design it is quite versatile as well i actually found that this was quite comfortable to use for a wider range of style cars than i expected we use it for gt3 we use it for gt4 formula style i wouldn't use it for rally or drifting or anything like that where you need to be able to slide the wheel through your hands of course so you know if you're looking at only purchasing one wheel i'd probably go with the wrc wheel over something like this but if you're looking for a step up in terms of functionality or you're mainly driving say a set of course of competition a or f1 or something like that then this is definitely a good choice so we'll set that guy back down again now and let's have a look at the let's go to the formula carbon next i think so this was along with the bmw gt2 wheel the two first wheels that i purchased when i first got into proper sim racing and what drew me to this wheel was just the overall quality of the finish so when you hold this wheel in your hands when you look at it on your sim it really does look like a nice high quality wheel like what you would find on a real life race car we've got the nice alcantara grips here in terms of functionality it is a little bit more limited than the mclaren gt3 v2 so while we can still access the tuning menu through this wheel and change all the settings that we need to it is the older three by seven segment display as opposed to the vfd or the oled display that we get on the clarion wheel we do have an led rpm gauge up here as well they're not rgb leds like what we have with the more expensive wheels though but we'll look at that in just a moment too we do still have our analog hat switch as well as a seven way funky switch here but if we flip it around you can see we don't have the analog paddles on the back here and we do just have the standard micro switch style spring loaded shifters unlike the magnetic ones on the mclaren gt3 wheel as well now one of the important distinctions here is that this is a 270 millimeter diameter as opposed to the 300 that we get in the mclaren gt3 as well because of the smaller diameter it is more suited to more formula style driving you can drive gt3 gt4 quite comfortably with it but you will find it's a little bit more twitchy and personally i just prefer a larger diameter so 300mm i think is the most versatile when it comes to driving the most broad range of cars possible so a good wheel overall but i would probably choose the mclaren gt3 wheel over this one simply because of the versatility that it offers one other thing to just note quickly as well as if we flip it around you can see it doesn't have the interchangeable quick release so if we do have one of these wheels we aren't going to be able to upgrade this to a qr2 at least to the best of my knowledge at this point in time you can see it is screwed in from the back side so it may be possible to pull it apart and do it that way but again just something to keep in mind as a question mark for now at least until we have more information on this qr2 system but there are some clear reasons why you might want to look at a v2 wheel this is actually the limited edition wheel here i don't have my v2 anymore but we'll have a look at this in just a moment there's a couple of reasons why i think this is a better value wheel than the formula carbon but again the formula carbon is a really nice looking wheel i think one of the nicest looking wheels for the price within the phonetic range which is the reason why i included it in this section so moving on to the bmw gt2 wheel so again this is one of the first wheels that i purchased when i bought my clubspot wheelbase 2.5 a couple of years ago now along with the formula carbon so the aim was originally to drive with the formula carbon for formula style driving and then use this for everything else now i actually ended up having an issue with my formula carbon i had a snapped pin and ended up having to drive with only this for about a month and while it was a little bit difficult it was doable so i would say you know if if you're only after one wheel and you're doing primarily gt style driving you want something a little bit more hefty and a little bit more premium feeling than the wrc wheel then you can get by with this but it is less versatile overall again we do have the seven segment display here as opposed to the oled that we get with the mclaren gt3 wheel so you can access all the things you need to but just something to be aware of there plenty of buttons available again we do have an analog hat switch as well as a 7-way funky switch so navigating through menus isn't a problem the shifters on this wheel do have quite a nice feel to them there are after-market magnetic paddle upgrades available for this wheel as well we do have a video on those which we made a couple of years ago you can adjust the amount of throw as well so screwing in this little bolt here adjusts the amount of throw in and out and again we don't have the interchangeable quick release on the back of this so this is something to just keep in mind as well but the main considerations with this wheel i would say are the fact that it is quite heavy so if you're looking at buying one of these for a clubspot wheelbase 2.5 or a csl elite it might be a little bit too much on the heavy side obviously the heavier the wheel the more dampening of effect it has on the overall force feedback so look i never really found that to be a problem on the clubsport wheelbase 2.5 but it did noticeably dampen the overall force feedback when compared to something much lighter like the formula carbon so i'd say this is probably a wheel for those who are doing more sort of gt style maybe gt4 or you know just sort of cruising around in a set of course or things like that probably not something that's going to be so suited to formula style driving or you know gt3 style driving if that's primarily what you're doing but also mention that it does have this d style design as well so it is a flat bottom wheel and that does make it a little bit more awkward for doing things like rally and drifting where you have to slip the wheel through your hands you do find that your hands kind of bang around on the bottom as it slips through something that i didn't really consider when i bought the wheel but if i had my time again it would be a hard choice between this and the 911 rsr wheel very similar in terms of functionality this has got pretty much the same kind of shifters they look a little bit different but they feel pretty much exactly the same and it does have the adjustable throw as well again not an interchangeable quick release on the back of this wheel so take note of that we can access the tuning menu once again through the little seven segment display much smaller display on this wheel we've got our rpm gauge on the top of this wheel as well now to me that doesn't look quite as nice as the one down here but you know again that's completely subjective otherwise functionality wise it's pretty much exactly the same we do have leather on this one as opposed to the alcantara and we do have a round design on this wheel as well so i'd say if you're wanting a more versatile choice between the two of these this is probably the way to go you're going to find this much easier to rally and drift with than you will the bmw gt2 wheel simply because of the round design as opposed to the d shape but otherwise pretty similar and i think you know if you're doing primarily gt style driving then it's just going to come down to subjective choice between which one you prefer the look of and i think it's pretty much as simple as that really so next up we have our limited edition f1 2020 wheel now i've got this on the table to stand in in place of a formula v2 wheel because essentially it's exactly the same functionality i actually ended up giving away my formula v2 when i got this one because i just didn't need it anymore but for all intents and purposes for the purpose of this video pretend that this is a formula v2 so this is a pretty important upgrade i would say from the formula carbon particularly for those who are playing a lot of f1 games from codemasters the main reason being the rotary encoders here for our thumbs so one little not issue but one annoyance that i had with the formula carbon when i was playing those f1 games in particular was you know not being able to easily adjust between different fuel trims and ers modes without kind of taking my eyes off the road and navigating menus and things like that i did end up mapping positive and negative to these buttons up here and i was able to kind of train my brain to do it but what i found is when i moved up to the formula v2 wheel having these rotary encoders here made a world of difference and it did genuinely improve my lap times because those are things that you actually often want to adjust mid corner you don't want to have to take your eyes off the road or kind of move your hands around on the wheel to do so so the standard formula v2 wheel has a closed bottom design as opposed to open like we have here standard carbon fiber as opposed to forged carbon fiber red accents instead of orange and alcantara groups instead of leather but otherwise in terms of functionality exactly the same the one other upgrade we did get with the limited edition as you can see here is the club sport magnetic paddle module normally it just comes with the exact same shifters as we have on our formula carbon again there is magnetic upgrades available in the aftermarket scene for it and you can upgrade it to either the cluster magnetic paddle module as we see here or the podium advanced pedal module should you wish to have those analog axes and the additional buttons at the top now you can use those for ers deployment drs deployment things like that as well but honestly for me i've never really felt the need to upgrade this to the advanced paddle module i did have an advanced pedal module on my formula v2 wheel and i just found i didn't really make a whole lot of use of that additional functionality so i'd say maybe start off with upgrading to an aftermarket magnetic module and then if you're finding that's just not quite enough you can upgrade to the collapsible magnetic paddle module to give you those nice neodymium magnet shifters but otherwise a really nice versatile wheel we do have the oled display here we do have rgb leds for our rpm as well as flags too and that's all configurable through the phantolab software too so again if you want to see more detail on the formula v2 or the limited edition we're like what we have here we do have more detailed videos on the channel where we talk you through all the software configuration and all the things you can do with this wheel so between the mclaren gt3 v2 the formula carbon and the formula v2 wheel i would say the mclaren gt3 is the best choice if you're wanting to drive the widest range of vehicles obviously being that 300 millimeter design also offers by far the best value for money in terms of functionality to get the same level of functionality on a formula v2 as what we have with this you do have to buy the advanced pedal module as well to get those analog paddles on the back so it actually ends up being around double the price to get this to the same level of functionality as we have here with of course the exception of the rgb leds that we have on the formula v2 so i'd say if you're doing primarily formula style driving particularly f1 2020 or f1 2021 when that comes out the formula v2 is probably the right choice otherwise i think i would probably recommend the mclaren gt3 wheel over the formula carbon unless you really do like that genuine carbon fiber look that you get here as opposed to the more plastic design that we get with the mclaren gt3 other than that it really just comes down to subjective choice and then we move up into the podium range let's just do a little swap here and let's take a look at the 911 gt3 wheel so this is available in a couple of different configurations we have the club sport version which uses the xbox universal hub instead of the podium hub so what we have here in this configuration is a podium hub with an advanced paddle module pretty much exactly what i'm holding here so that's the difference there so the club support version is quite a bit cheaper and it is xbox compatible the podium version is playstation assuming you have a playstation base and pc compatible only we have all the added functionality of the button module endurance here so a full led display with a whole bunch of telemetry data which we can display there flag leds rpm leds here as well and again we do have a detailed video we take you through all that functionality we've got some toggle switches here we've got our standard hat switch our standard 7-way funky switch some multi-position switches too really no shortage of functionality here whatsoever we also do have the choice between alcantara or leather finish as well so four different models in total between alcantara leather club sport and podium edition and in this case it's a 320 millimeter diameter rim so more suited to gt4 gt3 and general sort of gt style driving not a wheel that i would recommend if you're primarily doing formula style driving and not really the best all-rounder either because it does have that d-shaped design here so again you can't really slip the wheel through your hands for rally or drift style driving so while it is an absolutely beautiful wheel i would say if your budget limits you to either just this or the wrc and mclaren wheel it's probably a wiser choice to go with these two that's going to give you access to a wider range of cars between formula style and rally and drifting which you can do with the round wheel much more easily than you can do with a d-shaped wheel like this one so it is a really beautiful wheel and this is definitely my wheel of choice within the phonetic range for gt style driving in general but yeah when it comes to versatility overall i think that you know it probably is wiser to get a couple of cheaper wheels rather than just this wheel if you're on a limited budget but that segues quite nicely into some ways that we can accessorize these wheels as well because my actual wheel of choice when it comes to the phonetic range is pretty much exactly this but i like to run it with a r300 rim so this is a pretty much the same design you can see it's still a d shape on the bottom there but this is a 300 millimeter diameter as opposed to the 320 mm diameter that we have with the porsche 911 gt3 r so this lends itself to being a little bit more versatile when it comes to driving a wider range of vehicles now again because we do have the d shape on the bottom here it does limit us away from rally and drift style driving a little bit more but i find this a lot more comfortable to drive with i can drive quite comfortably in formula style cars as well as gt3 gt4 and pretty much everything in between so my wheel of choice at the moment is actually the r300 combined with the button module endurance and the podium hub along with the advanced paddle module it is more expensive quite notably so because we are buying individual components and grouping them together as opposed to buying an off-the-shelf kit but that in my opinion at least offers a slightly more versatile driving experience when compared with the 320 millimeter design of the porsche 911 gt3 r but let's move across now and look at some of the other wheel rooms that are available within the fnatic ecosystem as well some of the ways that we can combine all the various different components that we've looked at to create a more custom experience that will suit our needs best so last i wanted to have a look at some of my favorite combinations which we can make up out of various different components which are available as accessories now some of these are available as bundles as well in different configurations and it does tend to change around a little bit over time so i would definitely recommend having a look at the bundles which fnatic have available on their website before jumping in and buying the accessories again remembering that buying them as individual accessories does end up being more expensive than a bundle but let's start off by having a look at my favorite combination which is the r300 combined with the button module endurance and the podium hub with advanced paddle modules so we've got our podium hub our advanced paddle module here as well the button module endurance goes on top of that and then the r330 and you can see the r330 has that same kind of triangle design as we have with the porsche 911 gt3r 320 millimeter design so it fits in quite nicely there flows really nicely with the lines and everything on the button module endurance as well and as i said before it's a little bit more versatile there's still enough room for getting our thumbs in there as well we can reach all the buttons nice and easily as well a little bit of a more comfortable reach to the shifters too particularly if you want easy access to the top triggers as well i just find overall this is a little bit more comfortable to drive with than the 320 millimeter design so i would like to see them offer this as a package off the shelf as well to save a little bit of money because it is quite expensive i think it ends up being about 100 or 200 australian more expensive overall than just buying the porsche 911 wheel with the only real advantage just being that slightly smaller diameter i do really like the leather of this wheel as well and that kind of gold stitching looks really nice too so we'll set that guy aside now actually we'll pull it apart into individual components again now of course if you do want to save a little bit of money there you could combine this with the xbox universal hub and that would look something like this so again it integrates quite nicely the black kind of blends in quite well and although it doesn't have the same functionality as we get with the button module endurance we do have the added advantage of xbox compatibility here which we don't have with that configuration and other than that it offers pretty much exactly the same driving experience albeit at a lower cost so another good option there we do of course also have the magnetic paddle module upgrade here the club sport magnetic paddle module over the advanced pedal module but if you did want to have those analog shifters and the additional triggers you could upgrade to include those as well on this configuration we do of course have the option of using the csl universal hub as well that does bolt straight on pretty much all of the rims under 320 millimeter diameter within the phonetic range are compatible with all three hubs so you shouldn't have any drummers there so again you can see that looks quite nice as well if you want to save a bit more money and again we would extend this out a little bit to just make those shifters a little bit easier to reach but yeah the real disadvantage here unfortunately is just the quality of those shifters when compared to the xbox with the standard shifters or the magnetic paddle module or what we get with the advanced paddle module here they just really don't have anywhere near as nice a feel to them and that really is the let down with the universal hub where i do find the csl universal hub works a little bit better is with this smaller 270 millimeter diameter wheel so the round one as we see here and again we've got enough room there for our thumbs and we can reach all of the buttons quite conveniently without having to take our hands off the wheel too much and again our shifters are quite nice and easy to reach here because we do have the arms fully retracted here as well it does reduce the flex slightly too although it's not really all that noticeable when driving unless you pay attention to it it is something that is worth noting there then of course we do have the option of the flat two as well which look to be honest with you guys i would probably choose the round one over the flat two simply again because of the versatility you're not going to be doing any drifting or rally style driving with something like this obviously due to the shape whereas with this you've got a slightly more versatile driving experience although this is quite a nice room to drive with for things like v8 supercars for example or some of the more old school formula style cars as well although that said again being a smaller diameter you can drive formula style cars absolutely fine with this and this does match quite nicely up with some of those more old school formula style cars like the lotus 79 for example but again really where i think the advantage of the csl universal hub is going to come into play is if you already own a couple of aftermarket rims which are compatible with a 50 or a 70 mm stud pattern and you're wanting to bring those across into the phonetic ecosystem i think really outside of that there's not really a whole lot of reason to buy this product i'd say just jump straight up to some sort of a combo package that includes the xbox hub or the podium hub and the wheel that you want to get with it so there are quite a few packages there the forza bundle for example is a good one and again just jump on the website and see what's available at the time that you're looking at buying but again we can combine these quite nicely as well and you can see because we do have the ability to move the cluster pack around we can make this sort of match up pretty much exactly the configuration that we want and if you were wanting to go with a cleaner design still you could just bolt this directly onto something like a podium hub and you can see that has a really nice kind of black and gold finish to it quite classy and you can just you can see there the quality difference between the podium hub and the xbox universal hub again remembering that we lose the functionality of being able to access the tuning menu without the button module endurance which obviously is too big to use with a wheel like this so it kind of limits your functionality and again i really do hope that they come up with some sort of a intermediate level product that bridges the gap between this and that because that really is something that i think is missing from the range at the moment so that pretty much does it in terms of recommendations for the smaller diameter wheels from there we really just get into the more specialist stuff so there's a couple more wheels i wanted to show you quickly we have the classic two wheel which you can purchase as a bundle with the podium hub alone now this also comes with a really nice cnc machined aluminium center cap here as well so you can see it has that really nice classic look to it and you know leather construction as well nice quality stitching it is a more expensive rim but the quality is definitely there to justify the price and it even has that beautiful actually smells exactly like my new m2 so it's nice but um yeah nice wheel but being 350 millimeter diameter it does make it a little bit more difficult to pair with things like your button module endurance so you can see there when we bought that on it's a bit of a stretch there also is a little bit of dish there as well so it makes it a little bit more difficult to reach those buttons and you know i'd say probably for the majority of people it's not a room that you're going to want to combine with any sort of button module or shifters that's the other issue as well is if we have a look with our shifters here you can see there it is quite a stretch to reach those shifters and same deal again or the xbox universal hub as well as the club sport universal hub so even at maximum extension here you can see it is quite a stretch to reach those shifters so really a wheel that i think is going to look best on a more minimalistic design just with the podium hub no shifters no button plates or anything like that and just relying purely on a button box externally and a h pattern or sequential shifter to get the job done but nonetheless a really nice wheel but definitely something that's a little bit more specialist at 350 millimeter you're really not going to be wanting to use this for anything outside of say drifting rally style driving and that kind of more classic cruising around and maybe some of those more old school style cars definitely not something that you're going to be using for formula or gt3 gt4 style driving just the diamond is just too big and you end up losing that precision in your control as a result and then finally let's just have a quick look at a very similar rim the nascar rim so this has got quite a deep dish design to it so again obviously that rules out using a button cluster pack or anything like that because as you can see there's no way you're going to stretch across to reach that but not really the intended use anyway so this is a good wheel for rally style obviously nascar as well which is what it's intended for but it does come with a couple of different center cap options as well so we get the standard phonetic center cap which sort of turns it into more of a drift style wheel so obviously having the dish means that we can slip our hands around without having a risk of our hands catching on any buttons or anything like that that we might have connected to the wheel but then we also have the option of this second center cap here which is included and that goes on it then has a velcro pad here and we can stick on our nascar center plate like that so again i think it's pretty self-explanatory here obviously intended for people that are doing mostly oval style racing but a very nice quality wheel nonetheless alcantara grips and a nice center line here as well to keep you in alignment so again something that you're probably going to want to combine with a podium hub with no other buttons just to keep a nice clean look and relying on a button box or a you know external h pattern shifter or sequential shifter to get the job done there so i think that pretty much summarizes all of my recommendations when it comes to the phonetic range again remembering that you can bring in external after-market wheels to use with most of these as well just keep in mind with the button module endurance that you will have to account for the alignment now there are some templates that you can download from phonetics website as well to check compatibility with aftermarket wheels but really outside of that it just comes down to what you think is going to suit the types of cars that you're going to be driving the most and it's really as simple as that okay so that was quite a lot to go through but i'm hoping now you've got a better understanding of exactly how the ecosystem works and i guess how to prioritize your choices based off the types of cars you're going to be driving as well as of course your budget so i guess when it comes down to my three top picks out of the entire range i really find it hard to go past a couple of wheels so the mclaren gt3 v2 rim i think is you know punching way above its weight when it comes to value for money pretty much all the same features that you get with far more expensive wheels even outside of the phonetic ecosystem as well and while you know there are some compromises when it comes to plastic construction and things like that overall it is a fantastic wheel for the money and remembering as well you will need to upgrade it to the metal quick release as we've done here if you wanted to combine it with a dd1 or a dd2 which does add a little bit of additional cost that's just to unlock the full torque potential of those wheelbases but if you're pairing it with a csl dd a clubspot wheelbase 2.5 or a csl elite then straight out of the box without the metal quick release i think you're going to get a fantastic experience the wrc wheel as well i think is a fantastic choice combined with the mclaren gt3 v2 for pretty much covering all different styles of driving so this will cover you for your rally and drifting being a 300 millimeter diameter it really is a very versatile wheel gives a good overall experience as well it is a little bit cheaper in its construction but i think when you consider the fact that you can buy this and the mclaren wheel for around about the same price if not a little bit cheaper than the porsche 911 gt3 r wheel for example just for comparison reasons it really is hard to go past these two combined in terms of value for money just remember though if you are using a dd1 or a dd2 you are limited to low torque mode even if you were to upgrade this to the metal quick release so just keep that in mind but again a really excellent choice for a csl dd a classical wheelbase 2.5 or a csl elite i think when it comes to the smaller diameter 270 millimeter formula dedicated style wheels the formula v2 which we've got the limited edition standing in here for is really the really the clear choice i really do find that the addition of the thumb encoders adds so much to the driving experience overall that it really is worth the upgrade over something like the formula carbon for example i mean obviously if your budget won't stretch to that then the formula carbon's fine but you know to me it is worth the extra money just for those thumb encoders alone you do of course have the additional functionality of the led display and the programmable rgb flag and rpm gauges as well those don't really add so much to the overall driving experience i don't feel but those thumb encoders will genuinely make you faster particularly in the codemasters f1 games where you are wanting to change ers and fuel trim modes sometimes mid corner you're really not wanting to take your eyes off the road or adjust your hand position on the wheel when doing so so that is the clear choice for formula style driving dedicated of course you do have the option of the mclaren gt3 rim should you wish to sort of combine formula style with gt3 and gt4 style driving but then when we step up into the podium range i think there's really a couple of holes there that need to be filled by a few new wheels that we'll hopefully see in the future now i don't have any insider information here this is purely just my own wishlist but i think obviously we need to have a formula style wheel similar to thrustmaster's new sf1000 with a full-size screen in the middle of it i think that is something that a lot of people are waiting for and something that i really hope we do see soon but when it comes to more gt style my go-to wheel at the moment is the r300 with the podium button module endurance the advanced pedal module and the podium hub i just prefer this at 300 millimeters to what we have with the porsche 911 gt3r rim i just find it a little bit more comfortable to drive with and a little bit more versatile when driving between different types of cars so i think if you're after one expensive nice wheel as opposed to multiple cheaper wheels this is probably the way to go but really it just ultimately boils down to your own personal preference and of course the types of cars that you're going to be driving and i think that pretty much summarizes everything guys so if you do have any questions at all let us know in the comments down below and we're happy to get back to you and help you out there remember of course we do have dedicated review videos where we've gone into a lot more specific detail on pretty much all the individual products that we've looked at in today's video as well and we do of course have that written guide for you guys as well so hopefully you found the video interesting and useful guys if you have as always please do hit the thumbs up button if you haven't already subscribing and hitting the notification belt is a great way to stay up to date as well and we do have a monthly newsletter that we send out via our website too so hit up boostedmedia.net to check that out but as always guys thank you very much for watching and we'll see you again soon bye [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: Boosted Media

Views: 105,887

Rating: 4.9258952 out of 5

Keywords: Fanatec, CSL DD, CSL Elite, CSl Pedals, DD1, DD2, Podium, Direct Drive, McLaren GT3 V2, Fanatec McLaren, Fanatec BMW, Fanatec Formula V2, Fanatec Limited Edition, Fanatec Porsche, Best fanatec wheels, best fanatec wheel, which fanatec wheel is best, Fanatec CSL Hub, Fanatec Universal Hub, Fanatec Review, Fanatec Formula 1 Wheel., Fanatec Buyer's Guide, Best Sim Racing gear, Sim Racing guide, best sim racing wheel, best sim racing wheels 2021, sim racing buyer's guide

Id: sjUj-n4ZgkU

Length: 44min 55sec (2695 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 02 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Zimbor]

Don’t you have the new 2021 f1 rim?

[u/simraceralex]

Great video. This has answered so many of not all of my questions. Thanks