REVIEW - Thrustmaster SF1000 Ferrari Formula Wheel Add-On

hey guys will here so today we're going to be reviewing the brand new thrustmaster sf 1000 ferrari formula wheel add-on now i want to start off this by saying a big thank you to the guys here in australia at pagnion inputs it was originally looking like it was going to take us quite a bit of time to get our hands on one of these wheels here in australia directly from thrustmaster but they came to the rescue and they very kindly loaned us this wheel to check out for you guys and put this video together so big thank you to them right off the bat here but i'm really excited to get stuck into this wheel today because this is something that i think the market has needed for so long there's been a gaping hole in the market just screaming for a wheel that has an integrated screen like this at an affordable price or relatively affordable price up until now we've really had no options at all available for consoles unless you went down the diy path which isn't for everybody you couldn't get your hands on a wheel with this kind of functionality for anywhere near the price of this guy so 350 us dollars here or 5.99 including delivery here in australia if you purchase it from pagneon and yeah it looks to be a really great wheel for the price so what we're going to do today is start off by taking you through the hardware we'll take you through the construction the build quality the materials used the feeling of the buttons the shifters all those little details then we'll get stuck in and spend quite a bit of time around the functionality exactly what you can do with the display in this wheel what you can do with all the buttons there are a multitude of multi-position switches here that can be used for all kinds of different functions far beyond what you might be used to from a conventional sim racing wheel so i really want to spend some time today and explain exactly what you can do with this wheel and what you can't do as well and then we'll get stuck into the driving experience and hopefully by the end of today's video you'll have a good idea of whether this is the wheel for you so let's get going [Music] so let's start off by going through the key features of this wheel and obviously the thing that people are most excited about is this 4.3 inch or 109 millimeter display now we don't know exactly what the resolution is of this display they don't include that in the literature at all but we'll obviously have a look at it and see whether it's nice and clear once we get up and driving a little bit later on in the video but the display allows us to show up to 69 key items of information with different skins and this works in a couple of different ways as well depending on the game that we're playing so we have native support directly through the thrustmaster driver and we also have a wi-fi connectivity mode which works for games which have udp telemetry as well but of course we'll cover all of that in detail a little bit later on we've got a total of 25 action buttons as they're calling it and as you can see here we've got a hat switch here with left right up and down we've got multi-position switches here for adjusting different modes and screens on the display we've got the big center dial here which is also a multi-position switch we've got more multi-position switches here we've got push buttons we've got shifters on the back we've got analog paddles on the back we've got rotary encoders or multi-position switches here as well we really do have just about every single feature that i can possibly imagine wanting at least on paper here in the sf-1000 and one thing that i am really happy to see in particular is these encoders for the thumbs as well that's something that i think is so important particularly when playing f1 games like f1 2020 or the upcoming f1 2021 changing ers modes and fuel trims mid corner is something that can save you significant time around a lap in those games in particular and that's one thing that i've always told you guys that i love about phonetics formula v2 wheel as well as the limited edition wheels and something that i've always found missing on pretty much every other formula wheel that i've reviewed here with the exception of the cube controls wheel so i'm really happy to see those the buttons themselves are pretty much on par with what you get with a typical phonetic formula wheel as well as the mclaren gt3 wheel if you've used one of those not quite up to the quality of what you get with say an asset racing wheel for example but obviously remembering that the price is you know way way way less with this wheel i'm actually really happy and really satisfied with the feeling of these buttons they've got a nice sort of positive click to them it's it's an intentional click as well so it's not like you're going to be pushing these buttons by accident and obviously we'll get stuck into this in more detail when we go for a drive we have gloves on as well give you the experience with gloves as well as without gloves but yeah for now let's just say they've got a really nice positive click to them there's a little bit of squish in there before the buttons activate and you do get a nice sort of clicking sound there as well to let you know that you've pushed the button but the important thing here is that you can reach all the functions that you need to while driving without taking your hands off the wheel and without taking your eyes off the road and of course you would expect that with this being a one-to-one replica of the real-life ferrari formula one steering wheel you know obviously the drivers in real life need to be able to do this so we expect that we'll be able to do it with this wheel as well but it definitely doesn't disappoint in that regard now the multi-position switches are plastic as well but they do have a really nice again positive click to them nice and uniform throughout as well so they don't feel different between them which is sometimes an issue on some of the cheaper wheels that we've tested here but nice and uniform and again it's quite an intentional click so you're not going to bump that by accident and change modes without realizing it and again i think with or without gloves this is going to be absolutely fine but we'll talk about that when we're driving in just a minute and the center dial as well you can see there it's again quite an intentional click you're not going to rotate that by accident without realizing that you've done it but just while we're still looking at the face of the wheel here you can see it does have this beautiful carbon fiber design here and it is genuine carbon fiber as well 21 layers in fact and if you have a look at the side here you can see the individual layers of carbon fiber there and it is a nice high quality weave as well it doesn't look like they've kind of skimped on the quality of the carbon fiber which is something that i kind of did expect for a wheel at this price point remembering again although it is quite an expensive wheel it does have so much functionality packed into it and two of the things that did strike me immediately as well as i really like the feeling of these rubber grips they don't have a whole lot of squish to them they're not that same kind of gummy feeling stuff that we have with say the cube controls wheels or the asher racing wheel that we reviewed a couple of weeks ago but it does feel nice and comfortable it doesn't seem to be a dust and debris magnet like those are as well and i think that whatever the exact material is that they've used some sort of a rubberized material it does have a nice feel to it and yeah i think it's a really good choice of material there so i have to say construction wise i'm really impressed with this although you can see of course that it has been built to a price i think that the quality is very very good for what you're paying for this wheel again when you consider the functionality that you're getting so let's spin it around now and have a quick look at what we get in terms of shifters and paddles on the rear as well now when you initially open the box the shifters actually aren't installed in the wheel you can see there there's four little hex head bolts there which are used to secure the shifters in place now these are the standard shifters that come with the wheel there is also the option of the t chrono upgraded paddles as well which claim to decrease the bounce time to five milliseconds for more precise shifting as well unfortunately we don't have our hands on that to test out for you guys today but hopefully we'll be able to get our hands on them a little bit later on now interestingly thrustmaster in their own literature actually tried pretty hard to convince you to upgrade to that t-chrono system i'm just having a look at their literature here it says the t-chrono paddles paddle shifters sold separately are a must-have accessory for amazing lap times i actually would disagree with that because i actually think that these paddles are really good straight out of the box i'm actually really impressed with them you can see if we're getting on the side there is a little neodymium magnet in there and they actually have a really really nice positive feel to them again we've got that kind of positive click it is a little bit rattly which i guess is the only detractor you can kind of hear a bit of a double click thing going on there if you're getting close you can see there's the magnet releasing which is kind of one click and then we've got the second click which is where the little micro switch internally is actually clicking down so you get the one click and then the second click there it's a little bit hard to demonstrate there you go you can hear the two kind of clicks there and what you'll also notice here is there's a spring loaded mechanism on the opposing side too so when we click it you can see it's releasing the magnet on this side and actually pushing this side up as well and vice versa if we go this way now they are a push pull configuration as well so you can flick down or push up on one side should you wish to shift in that manner and yeah look just overall the shifters feel really nice and again we'll talk about it in more detail when we go for a drive a little bit later on but yeah look i wouldn't be rushing out straight away and buying that upgrade i actually think that most people are probably going to be satisfied with these shifters and again it is constructed out of cast aluminium as well it's not nice anodised billet aluminium like we'd expect from a more expensive wheel but again for the price point i think that the quality is definitely what i would expect maybe even slightly exceeding what i would have expected for the price again remembering the amount of functionality that we have on this wheel and if we put it next to say the phonetic mclaren gt3 wheel for example this overall you know does feel quite a lot more plasticky and i actually for me and my personal preference and this is a very subjective thing but i actually do prefer the feeling of the shifters although they're a very similar design again being magnetic and a push-pull design this is the v2 wheel by the way not the first generation one but i actually do prefer the feeling of the thrust master over the phonetic wheel for me personally and the reason i say that is it's just it's just a more positive click on the thrust master it just has a nicer overall feel to it feels a little bit less like a toy and more like a real-life race car wheel which is obviously something that people want when they're buying a wheel for their sims so let's set that guy aside again now and yeah look i'm really impressed with those shifters i don't see them really being an issue at all and yeah as i said before i think that maybe by the wheel try it out with the default shifters first and if you feel like you do still want that upgrade then maybe shift across to the other ones obviously i don't know what the other ones feel like maybe they are way way way better check out some other reviews to get a better picture of that but i don't think you're going to be disappointed with the shifters that you get with the wheel by default and then we of course do have a couple of analog paddles down here as well they've got quite a decent amount of throw there to them again they are just hollow cast aluminium so if we flip it around the other side you can see there the open back because they are aluminium though there's no flex in them and that is one thing that we did have problems with on the original v1 maclaren wheel once again you can see with the new one they moved across to this kind of honeycomb design internally which solved that problem of flex but yeah that really has no flex on it at all anymore which is good now i'm not sure if these are using hall sensors or hall effect sensors or potentiometers for the analog inputs i don't think it's really important what's important is more just the feeling and i can tell you those feel really nice and smooth a nice progressive spring right there as well so as you pull the paddles in they do kind of increase in tension so yeah i mean again just overall everywhere i look on this so far it's meeting or exceeding my expectations for the price point obviously we have the default thrust master quick release system here as well with the standard connection inside little din connector with six pins and as we touched on earlier in the video there is also wireless connectivity as well here for pulling in telemetry data to the display so obviously being a one-to-one replica of the real-life ferrari formula one steering wheel we don't expect any issues ergonomically as we kind of touched on before but i will just quickly mention it is 280 millimeter diameter which is perfectly fine for driving most formula style cars as well as gt3 and even gt4 style cars as well if you're looking for a one size fits all wheel for doing things like rallying and drifting and more gt style driving then you know this isn't going to be the wheel for you but i think that's probably pretty self-explanatory at this point i will also comment quickly as well it is quite light at just 1.14 kilograms and that is you know quite good considering again the amount of functionality the number of buttons the screen and everything that we have here and it does feel quite well balanced in the hands as well it doesn't feel top or bottom heavy it doesn't feel like it's going to try and topple on you obviously that's going to be less important when it's mounted up on the base but speaking of that i think now is time to get it hooked up on our tspc wheelbase take you through all the functionality get everything calibrated and set up and then get stuck into some driving so let's move on okay so we've got the wheel up and running now on our tspc racer up on the pc with f1 2020 running in the background as you can see now it's taken me a good four or five hours of just experimenting with the wheel to get my head really wrapped around all the things that this can do it really is amazingly well feature packed and we want to try and unpack this as much as we possibly can in the video for you today so i'm going to start off by running you through the button configurations here and exactly what they do because not all the buttons that we looked at before in the hardware closer look section uh mappable inside the game a lot of these buttons are related to functions on the wheel itself so we'll explain all that first also just quickly wanted to run you up to speed on how to get this up and running on the pc as well so it was as simple as just plug and play on our tspc racer here on the pc we did just need to make sure we were running the latest firmware version on the wheelbase there was nothing we needed to do on the wheel side these do come shipped from factory with the latest firmware at the time of making this video but of course later on in the future you may need to upgrade the firmware to get the latest features and benefits so i would always recommend checking thrustmaster's website just to make sure that you are getting all the latest features and benefits out of your wheels so let's explain this first of all by starting off with the buttons that are actually mappable inside the game so we'll start off with pc and we'll have a brief look at consoles as well just based off the pdf document i don't unfortunately have a ps4 or ps5 or an xbox here to show you so we'll start off looking at pc and then we'll have a quick glance over consoles as well so to start off with pc we have by my count 29 individual functions that we can actually map inside the game so that is our shifter paddles being one and two then obviously our analog paddles too then we have one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven push buttons two rotary encoders for our thumbs two rotary encoders down here each with push buttons as well and then our d-pad so that adds up to 29 individual functions the other buttons that you see on the face of the wheel so our two multi-position switches here our third one here our toggle switch and our little dial in the center here which is also a push button those are all related to changing functions on the wheel itself so that is the same for xbox and playstation as well so if we have a look at the mappings for playstation here on the screen which we've pulled up for you now you can see pretty much the same deal again here for ps4 and ps5 and if we go down to xbox pretty much the same again the only real difference is being the way we can map the functions of the two analog panels so if we go back up to pc we can switch between four different modes using the phase dial here so you can't actually physically turn the dial past those settings and that's one of the things you need to understand with this wheel the the stickers that you see on the face of the wheel don't correlate with the actual functions it's just because it's a replica wheel it's kind of made to look like the real-life ferrari wheel rather than actually representing what you can do with the buttons themselves so once you kind of get your head past that some people are going to kind of be frustrated by that i think some people want to actually be able to map these to the real functions you know in the real sim but you know from a pure functionality and ease of use perspective i think they've gone the right way about doing this and once you wrap your head around what all these things do it is actually quite intuitive and i think the reasons why they've done things the way they have will become abundantly clear as we progress through this video so in pc mode we've got four different positions as we mentioned before the first position is a left break and a right throttle so second position so we switch it to number two position that gives us a clutch and a mappable axis which we can assign to any function we want then we have a third position here for left and right both assignable to clutch and then the fourth position is mappable access for both of the paddles so left and right if we go down again to our playstation you can see pretty much the same idea here breaking gas clutch and handbrake clutch and clutch left view and right view and then on xbox we're a little bit more limited brake and throttle clutch and handbrake or clutch and clutch and position four is not non-functional on the xbox so hopefully that makes sense there so yeah four different positions here which allow us to make different adjustments for our functions of our paddles two rotary encoders here now it is important to understand that these are rotary encoders so they send a pulse when you turn up and a pulse when you turn down a push button as well but they're not multi-position switches so they don't constantly relay a physical fixed position to the sim so let's run through this display now which is i'm sure the thing that most of you are here for so 4.3 inch display again i'm not sure exactly what the resolution is i believe it's probably somewhere around the sort of 480 by 272 resolution something like that similar to what we get with the usb d 480 display but i can tell you at the size that we have here at 4.3 inches it is a good resolution there's no issues when we go through with you know seeing the detail in the text or anything like that that's something that we have commented on a couple of other dash reviews that we've done with the telemetry data that was available on those particular dashes sometimes it was a little bit difficult to read but in this case at least with the screens that we have available now which we're going to go through in just a moment no issues at all with reading what's on the display so i would definitely say the resolution is adequate but let's talk a little bit about the functionality here first because a couple of different modes that we need to understand as well as how the buttons work so as we discussed before all these buttons down the sides here are all mappable they're all functions that we can actually have assigned to functions inside our game all the buttons in the center here including our little toggle switch are related to the screen itself so we'll start off with the most simple off and on as a toggle switch for our display so there are going to be some scenarios where you might want to switch the display off driving in vr for example you might not need it on so i guess it makes sense that they have that function there and of course being a replica of the real-life wheel that does have a toggle switch in the same position as well now the remaining three buttons here including the d-pad although that is mappable inside the game as well are all related to navigating through menus so let's start off by talking about the two different modes which are available here now we have a native mode which is what we're looking at now where we're pulling in the data directly from the game through the thrust master driver and then outputting it on the display so there's no need for any sort of external connections wi-fi or anything like that and then we also have a udp telemetry mode as well now at the time of making this video that is only compatible with f1 2019 through f1 2021 when that comes out very shortly from now i believe they will be adding support for additional games as well it says pretty clearly on their website i'll add a link down in the description below and i would suggest checking that link out when you're watching this video to see exactly where things are at at the point where you're watching this video but at the time of making the video only those games are supported which is unfortunate because the screens are really useful and really cool and it's unfortunate to be limited to only being able to use them in the f1 games from codemasters at this point in time but it is what it is so we can switch between udp telemetry mode which is i assume the mode that's going to be used for supporting a lot of other games further on down the track or the native mode which pulls in directly through the driver as we said before so the left-hand side multi-position switch allows us to choose between different modes so we've got a native mode there which is bringing in the data exactly as we would see it on the wheel and as you'll see in a moment we can do a little bit more with this as well then we've got a couple of other modes here as well including a developer mode which just brings all the raw data now i don't know whether further on down the track they're going to allow us to create our own custom design screens as well using the data that's available in developer mode there's no literature about that at all whatsoever at this point in time so i can only speculate there but the fact that it's pulling all this data in would kind of indicate that potentially there's going to be more that we can do with this into the future but if we go back to our native display here we can also go through pages as well so you've got what you're seeing on the wheel itself and then we can also go through what we would see in our multi-function display inside the game as well so we've got our tyre wear indicator then we've got a temperature readout so engine temperature as well as our brake temperature our surface and our carcass temperature for each of the four tires we can then go through to the percentage of wear on each of the components inside the engine as well which as those of you who play f1 2020 regularly would know that's really important when you're playing through career mode to make sure you don't end up getting penalized towards the end of the season so that's really important for management and again these are all the things that you would have on the multi-function display normally and if we go one more it takes us back to our main display again and we also have pages on those other displays as well so if we flick across to the next one we also have a range of other displays available as well we can also switch between a light and dark mode by pushing in our right hand stick as well so i mean there's nothing glaringly obvious that's missing from any of the data here it seems to be you know pretty all-encompassing but the one thing i think is really important to understand here is that these are all predefined screens so we can't customize these at least at this point in time like we can with say a usb d480 dash or something like what we would find in a precision sim engineering wheel or a cube controls wheels or something like that so i think that from a pure plug and play perspective this is going to appeal to a lot of people it gives you all the information that you need without the need for sort of stuffing around and kind of having to dig deep in to get everything working whereas a lot of other wheels you do have to do quite a lot of fiddling around to really get it to really get i guess get the most out of it whereas this kind of just works straight out of the box so if you're like me and you'd like to be able to just sort of jump in and drive at the drop of a hat when the opportunity arises then i think this is definitely going to appeal to you and it will it'll be really exciting to sort of dig deeper into this once we see a little bit more functionality and of course support for other sims outside of the code masters f1 games as well but for the titles that aren't able to bring in the telemetry natively like this we do also have the option for a wi-fi connection which is a little bit more complicated it does require a little bit of setup but it does give us support for some of the older code master titles for xbox and playstation and i assume this is a method that they're going to use as they implement support for future games as well so let's just quickly run through how that works now as well so what we need to do first of all is get the wheel connected to the same network as your pc that's running the sim is connected to so it can connect via wi-fi even if your pc is connected via cable as long as it's on the same network or same subdomain it will work so what we do is we push in on the left hand button here to bring up our menu we want to get it connected to wi-fi so there's some instructions on the thrustmaster website basically what we do is we open up through a wi-fi connection on our phone we've got to click through a couple of options there just to get it connected it's not a difficult process it's a little bit convoluted but there's clear instructions on the thrustmaster website so i don't really see the need to run you through all that in today's video but basically once we've got this connected here we've got a couple of options that we can configure here as well so we can scroll through the menu using our d-pad so we go down to measurements scroll across and having the little wheel symbol here selected allows us to configure all of this as we want it on the wheel itself if we scroll across and select the little pc screen here that's allowing us to bring in the data as it comes from the game so we set everything up as we want it inside the game and it just reflects on the display exactly as it would on the display on the wheel in the virtual world so then we can scroll down as well actually go back across to the wheel and then we can choose between metric imperial or custom we can go down and we can set each of these units to be whatever we want so it's pretty self-explanatory and it's a nice menu system as well it's nice and easy to navigate it all kind of just makes sense you can scroll down to brightness adjustment two and go across so again pretty self-explanatory we've got a udp telemetry selection here as well at the moment as we said this only supports the codemasters titles but later on i'm assuming this will be where we select the game that we want to use and then we've just got an information screen here as well which gives us our firmware version the network that we're connected to and so forth so pretty simple menu system but it is there and again this may be expanded into the future we can also see here our signal strength for our wi-fi connection our ip address as well and all those other bits of information as they may be necessary for configuration later on but i think that that pretty much explains everything we need to in terms of the core functionality of the wheel so let's get up and running now let's go for a drive talk about the ergonomics of the wheel the functionality and how it actually relates to the driving [Music] experience [Music] so [Music] so driving experience with the sf 1000 from frost master so i spent a good three or four hours driving with this wheel and just appreciating it and really kind of getting stuck into it and enjoying the experience of using the wheel and you know thinking back to a couple of years ago when i spent well over 600 hours playing f1 2018 and 2019. i used to race pretty much every single day i was practicing and doing league racing so i really do know those games inside out i haven't spent quite so much time with 2020 but going back into it you know i i can honestly tell you that using this wheel did create a much more immersive experience overall and i did spend quite a bit of time using the wheel outside of the main rig as well just on a single smaller screen like what i used to use with f1 2018 years ago you know just to kind of see exactly what this was bringing to the table and yes it absolutely does give you a more immersive experience just that feeling of kind of sitting in a car seeing the real life wheel replicated in your physical hands and having all those readouts there you know not only does it make it more immersive overall but it also does genuinely add to the experience as well makes it easier to navigate through menus which can be quite cumbersome in the f1 games you know see what your tyre temperatures are see what your engine temperatures are ers management fuel mapping you know all those functions that are absolutely critical to being fast and competitive in those codemasters games in particular are all present and really well implemented on this wheel so i think beyond that really the best way i can go about describing this too is just go through a list that i've created of i guess the pros and cons of this wheel so we'll start off with the things that i didn't like quite so much or the things that i thought perhaps could be slightly improved over what we have here right now and then we'll elaborate a little bit more on some of the things that i really enjoyed about this wheel so the first and most obvious thing is the current limited game support now it does say pretty clearly on their website that they will be adding more games soon i think was the wording and you know i really hope that that does happen soon because i can see the core functionality is there you've got all of those udp telemetry screens that are just waiting to have integration with you know all the sims that support udp telemetry output so i don't see any reason why that can't happen and i do believe that it's just down to a software and firmware thing so hopefully we'll see that soon unfortunately i do have to send this wheel back so we're not going to be able to test it straight away but i will try to get my hands on one again in a few months time and see whether the whether the overall experience has improved in terms of integration with other games but for now only working with f1 2019 and upwards which was a bit of a downer considering the price of this wheel you're definitely not going to want to use it as your only wheel if you're looking at using other sims as well you're definitely going to want to have something else in the cupboard that you can pull out when you're playing other games following on from that as well while i really did love the plug and playability of this and just the general ease of integration which we'll talk about in just a moment i was a little bit disappointed to find that you couldn't actually customize your own screens now again this may be something that we will see added in later we do have that developer mode which kind of hints that there may be something to come but again at the time of making this video this wasn't something that was available and it is something that you can do with other wheels that have integrated screens using you know z1 dashboard you know joel reel timing sim hub ultimate game tech and the like so it is something to just be aware of if you are wanting to sort of really get stuck into it and design your own screens it's not something that you can do at this point in time at least as far as i can find in the documentation that's available online as of right now now while we're still on the subject of functionality one other thing that i thought was a little bit strange was it doesn't appear to be any dual clutch functionality and what i mean by that is the ability to set a bite point and then have a release function so you always hit a perfect clutch release now that's something that we see on most wheels these days that have dual analog paddles and i really didn't see any reason why it couldn't be quite easily integrated into the driver i don't know whether it's an oversight or something that they're planning on bringing in later but it does seem like an obvious missing function for the wheel so it's something that i definitely felt was necessary to call out so again i'm sure that this is something that's just purely down to software and firmware and it's something that can be added in a little bit later on but it's just a function that i was expecting to see and something that was kind of you know obviously missing from an otherwise very feature-rich wheel so i thought that was something that was important to call out as well now moving into the ergonomics while the overall construction does feel quite solid especially when you consider the price point and the amount of functionality that we have here there is just that little bit of twist in the hand grips that's you know it isn't really noticeable when you're driving unless you really do pay attention to it but it is something that i always look for when i'm reviewing a wheel and there was just a little bit of flex in the bottom portion of the grips which did also lead to a little bit of plastic creaking as well again not something to be too critical of and i don't think that it's going to impact the overall driving experience but again something that i always do check so something that i wanted to point out for you guys but the main nitpick i have in terms of ergonomics is just around these rotary dials now what i found was well the two things really i think that you know the plastic knobs that we have on these particularly the ferrari button in the middle with the kind of shiny plastic ferrari logo in the center does look quite cheap and it's kind of the first thing you notice when you pull the when you pull the wheel out of the back it's got the nice carbon fiber finish it's got the nice rubber grips it is you know plastic buttons which are pretty normal for all wheels even far more expensive wheels than this but the plastic knobs on the buttons particularly this one in the center just do look quite cheap and toy like and i feel like you know even though it is a relatively cheap wheel again when you consider the functionality just updating those buttons with metal caps would have made such a difference to how the wheel just kind of felt overall and while we have been really spoiled with some of the incredible expensive wheels that we have tested here on the channel in the past it was just something that jumped out to me immediately as you know the the overall experience and pride of ownership that you would have this wheel would be so much higher if they just improved that one small little thing which really wouldn't add all that much to the overall cost of the wheel so you know for me personally i'd actually be willing to pay a little bit more for the wheel and just have those buttons be a slightly nicer quality so again it's a subjective thing you might not agree with me but just something that kind of stood out to me now the other nitpick that i do have with these rotary encoders in particular is the fact that the push button action is nowhere near stiff enough for me i found that even without gloves but particularly with gloves what was happening is every time i went to rotate the button i was actually pushing it by accident so i actually had to go as far as not assigning a function to those two push buttons so i wouldn't accidentally press it all the time when i was just trying to rotate the knob so it is a subjective thing you may not have the same problem as i did and i'm sure that over time i would get used to it and kind of be able to adjust my muscle memory around it so it wasn't an issue anymore but it was something that was a constant frustration when using the wheel for me great first lap keep it up [Music] and the last little tiny nitpick that i have which is really i guess not really a positive or a negative it's just kind of an observation is even though it is a replica wheel and obviously the stickers that are on here are replicating what you would have on the real life wheel in the context of sim racing a few of them are just a little bit strange personally i'd like to have you know stickers around the screen selections in particular that were a little bit more indicative of what these switches were actually doing and just little things like why do you need a drink button for example i mean i can't imagine many people are going to be creating a you know actuator system that activates a pump and you know feeds a drink through to their sim when they push the button i mean i have seen people do it but you get the point i think that you know by all means include the replica stickers but maybe you know maybe ship the wheel without stickers installed and include a sticker sheet that has these on it but also has some other more commonly used in a sim racing context style stickers so again a very very small nitpick but something that i just think was an interesting design choice let's just say but having said all that there are some things that i absolutely love about this wheel as well so let's move on into the positive so overall with the exception of those plastic buttons that i mentioned before i do think that the construction is really really great for the price point again considering the functionality that we're getting for the money as well i love that they've given us a nice three millimeter carbon sheet which is genuine carbon fiber i really really love the rubber grips that they've used here i actually think that i prefer these in some ways to the rubber grips that we have on far more expensive wheels they don't pick up all that dust and debris and kind of dead skin cells and you know ugly horrible things like that that we get on some of those more expensive wheels and you know just ergonomically overall it was a really enjoyable experience using the wheel there's no sharp edges anywhere i didn't have any problems with blisters forming when i wasn't using gloves or anything like that very very comfortable wheel the diameter is spot on for formula style racing as well and it's just obvious that they've put a lot of thought into the design overall to provide a really great sim racing experience you know the weight the the balance of the wheel as it sits on the wheelbase as well is perfect it doesn't sort of auto rotate or anything like that it doesn't slop to the side and you know just overall the construction and the quality that you're getting for the money with the exception of those buttons is really fantastic the shifters as well in particular really really love these shifters i would go as far as to say i actually do prefer the feeling of these shifters to the mclaren gt3 v2 wheel from fnatic that we recently reviewed and if you compare it to a lot of other wheels that are at a similar price point to this so say the phonetic formula v2 for example these shifters are much much much nicer than you get with that wheel which is a similar price without the level of functionality that we have on this wheel either so it just again goes to show that they have you know spent the money in areas that are important and the shifters are definitely a good example of that we do of course also have that optional upgrade available too and it was interesting to see that thrust masters literature kind of indicated that that was a necessary upgrade if you were really serious about sim racing but look to be completely honest with you guys i don't really feel any need to upgrade these shifters i think they do just fine as they are obviously i haven't tested the other ones so i don't know what i'm missing out on but yeah i think you know don't don't just rush out and buy those other shifters i think give it a give it a play as it lies and see how you feel about it and then if you want to upgrade later on by all means do so but that was one thing in particular that really stood out to me as a highlight with this wheel so now we move more into the functionality side of things and i think probably the single biggest selling point of this wheel is just the ease of use the ease of integration into those codemasters f1 games i mean obviously we talked already about the lack of integration with other titles and hopefully we will see that in the future but you know just the ability to just plug this in have it just work straight out of the box and i assume that the experience is quite similar with consoles as well you would expect it would be unfortunately i can't test that for you guys for myself but you know we were able to plug this in all we had to do was update the firmware on the wheelbase which you know was a documented process anyway so it wasn't like it was a surprise we plugged the wheel in we switched it on we loaded the game and everything just worked straight away straight out of the box and you know that's something that i've talked about so many times on this channel before there's nothing more frustrating than when you've got a quick half hour you know the kids have just gone to sleep the missus is out doing something and you've just got that half an hour where you just want to play a game you don't want to have to stuff around getting things set up and getting them working and this you know this was perfect for that kind of scenario because you just plug it in it just works all the functions are just there and there's no stuffing around so that is probably the single best thing about this wheel in my opinion i will also say the documentation is absolutely fantastic as well when it comes into you know configuring wi-fi and things like that if you do need to go down that path for getting it set up all the documentation is very clear nice step-by-step guides with pictures you know indicators for which buttons to press it really couldn't be more simple so no problems are there whatsoever and i do think that that's something that's very important because you know bad documentation can take something that would have been an enjoyable experience to being a negative experience there's nothing worse than unboxing a brand new piece of equipment that you've been saving for for months and really proud of and really excited about and then having to stuff around and get frustrated trying to get it working so that's something that i definitely appreciated about the experience with this wheel now throughout the experience of using the wheel as well i never once ran into a scenario where i wasn't able to assign a function to something that i needed that goes for menus as well this is one of the few wheels that i've used where i was actually able to you know navigate the entire menu systems using nothing but the wheel itself so i was able to use the d-pad you know assign a button to forward and back and start and stop and rewind all those things that i wanted i was able to do right there on the wheel which was really fantastic ergonomically as well as you mentioned earlier on everything's nice and easily reachable you only have to take your hands off the wheel just to get down to these rotary encoders at the bottom everything else you can kind of just reach with your thumbs and you can see clearly in the footage i'm able to switch between engine modes fuel trims you know activate drs activate my overtake you know all those things that are necessary particularly with the codemasters f1 games very very easily without taking my eyes off the road or my hands off the wheel which is of course very very important so no lack of functionality here whatsoever when it comes to buttons and a similar kind of theme also follows on with the display itself as well there wasn't really anything that i felt was missing other than maybe a leaderboard that was the one thing that i kind of wished was there and again it would be nice if we could customize it but maybe that'll come in the future but all the core necessary ingredients are all there and again being able to mirror exactly what we have in the mfd in those codemasters f1 games is really really cool something that you know really does add a whole new level of immersion to the experience of playing those games in particular and something that i'm sure any avid f1 player will really really appreciate with this wheel well worth the money if you can afford it just for that in my opinion and even when it comes to the design of those additional dashes that we looked at earlier all of those are very clear to view as well there's no clutter and it's just it's just obvious throughout the experience that they've put a lot of time and effort into you know making the experience as good as possible you know and it's real sim racers that are actually using and developing these products rather than just engineers that don't really know what it's like to use them in the real world i'd say you know that is one of the underpinning themes that's kind of followed throughout the entire experience of using this wheel and lastly we haven't really talked about the leds up until this point but again i mean i kind of just forgot that they were there because they just worked so well i mean you could see in the driving footage again the drs lights would light up and then when it activated it one of them would come off we had the flag leds working as well the rpm gauge was working and it was matching the engine rpms that were on the virtual wheel as well and again no need to set anything up or make any adjustments or load sketches or anything like that all of this just worked straight out of the box which i absolutely loved so i guess in summary i've really enjoyed my time with this wheel i'm kind of disappointed to have to send it back to you to be honest because i was really loving playing those f1 games with this wheel and i think that you know while obviously there's some missing functionality and it is a difficult sell for anybody who's you know primarily playing games other than the code masters f1 games at this point in time we are hoping that they will update that list of supported games soon and once they do that hopefully we'll be able to get our hands on one again to test out a little bit more extensively for you guys but you know having said that there are plenty of people out there that only play those f1 games i was one of them for about five years so it was tom behind the camera as well and you know i enjoyed every single minute of doing that so i think if you are one of those people that plays those games and and loves them then this is absolutely a good choice wheel for you it is a little bit on the expensive side i know but again when you consider the build quality uh you know the functionality and all the things that you're getting for the money i really don't see any reason not to recommend this wheel if you fall within that usage category so i really hope that you guys have found the review interesting and useful if you have please do leave a thumbs up and thank you once again to packing and imports here in australia for loaning us this wheel to put together a review video for you guys and again if you do want to pick one of these up we do have a link down in the description below which sends a small commission our way and that helps us to keep these review videos flowing so thank you so much for the support there but above all guys thank you very much for watching as always and we'll see you again soon bye [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Boosted Media

Views: 106,624

Rating: 4.9306459 out of 5

Keywords: Ferrari, SF1000, Thrustmaster, Thrustmaster Ferrari, SF1000 Review, Licenced F1 wheel, formula wheel, sim racing wheel, best sim racing wheel, best wheel for sim racing, best thrustmaster wheel, thrustmaster ferrari wheel, simhib, cube controls, Precision Sim Engineering, f1 2020, f1 2019, f1 2021, codemastes f1, codemasters, best wheel for f1 2020, best wheel for f1 2021, sim racing wheels, ferrari sf1000 review

Id: FGcXbMx6dGo

Length: 39min 7sec (2347 seconds)

Published: Sat May 22 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/idiot_proof]

As someone with a T300, this is really compelling to me. That said, it’s putting a large investment into the thrustmaster ecosystem, which is pretty mid range gear. I’m waiting to see how the Fanatec CSL DD shapes up before deciding to pick this up or to hold off and spend money on a better cockpit (I have an Openwheeler V3) or a shifter for iRacing.

[u/Apexmisser]

Hey mate, Did you win the poll to test the new fanatec DD wheel base?

[u/schrodingers_razors]

Do u think fanatec will produce a similiar f1 wheel?