Gadgetory

hey guys this is pretty cool this is the kind of thing that I don't often have the opportunity to take a look at this is the TF 500rs from Thrustmaster and the difference between the RS and the non RS is that the non RS is the one that I would personally be interested in because it's compatible with PC as well but this is the ps3 only one other than that they are pretty much the same idea so we're going to start by getting it opened up because this is going to be a bit of an ordeal to open because it's big and it's heavy in fact that's even a selling point of the device in the first place it's one of the things that Thrustmaster puts right on the front of the box it's heavy which it better be for how much it costs I guess so if you're looking at in terms of like dollars per pound then you know you could go to XE comm and you can find out what the actual exchange rate is or you could just I'm just kidding that's a little that's a little exchange rate humor I think is I think is an underdeveloped an underdeveloped field of inmate in the humor scientist Sciences basically I'm just stalling guys I'm just stalling I'm trying to get the box open and figure out what we've got to deal with here and I wanted to talk about how Frost faster does call out specifically the weight of their pedal set right on the front fifteen point four pounds for the 100% metal pedal set it also has two positions GT and Raleigh or f1 so you can actually switch it around to mount it either this way or this way and it looks like this is the one that comes out of the box so let's actually know I'm going to get it D pakka five and then we'll be back in a second so why would you pay more for a racing wheel the simple answer is build quality so yes all-metal extremely rugged construction great feedback on the pedals it actually feels like pressing on a brake as opposed to just being a piece of plastic that doesn't feel like pressing on a brake these are fully removable which is really cool so you can we customized the whole unit quite a bit according to your particular preferences so there's your so gas brake and clutch all have different tensions so that they feel a gently different now switching between the two different modes is actually really simple all you have to do is flip it like this use the included allen key to move the diamond plate down to the bottom and then you are in the other mode and then I guess you can I guess you just have to switch around through the software the functionality and then you can actually switch the pedals over like that that's really cool so okay the bottom can also be fully taken apart and rearranged according to how you want see they've even got wing nuts on there as opposed to you know building it with rivets or hex screws or you know stuff they don't want you to take apart because they don't want you to see how it's built tends to be riveted together not the case so you got a nice big rubber non-slip grip e pads six of them on this one and four of them here so you shouldn't have any problems with it moving around while you're trying to use it and the pedals connect to the top via um what is that RC R RJ RJ 11 is that what it's called whatever the phone jack one okay so let's put that down for now man it's heavy and now we get to the meat and potatoes of this particular unit which is the actual meal itself so it has a little base station standing guy here which goes like that I'm not actually going to install it for the time being you've got all the hardware pieces that you may or may not need you've also got the huge power brick why is there a huge power brick with this wheel and the reason is quite simple there is a 3000 rpm motor inside here that gives you a variety of different things it gives you the responsiveness and the torque necessary for much better force feedback then you're going to find on a less expensive racing wheel it also gives you that responsiveness so Wendy when the motor spinning faster you get a quicker response depending on what it's trying to do than it would if the motor was spinning slower so you get that you also get ah and extremely well-built racing wheel here so you've got 10 buttons overall I believe on the outside these are 18 centimeter shifters so that pretty much no matter where you are in your steering you can actually shift them they're also affixed to the base which has a couple of advantages one is it's not going to move the wheel around when you're trying to when you're trying to press on them so you're not going to accidentally shift a little bit number two is it gives you the flexibility to upgrade your wheel so you can actually completely remove the wheel and replace it with something when an upgrade is available in the future that's something that they have built in as functionality with this unit um all right let's talk about the wheel a little bit more so it's got a very grippy feeling outside but there's a little bit of slide as well basically it feels like a steering wheel which is the complaint that I have about some of the some of the steering wheels that I've encountered in the past that just don't really feel like a steering wheel it's big like a steering wheel as opposed to again being small and not really feeling like a real steering wheel in terms of buttons this is the ps3 exclusive ones so it's got you know PlayStation buttons r2 l2 d-pad and then the triangle squared damages who has and then there's also your additional ones down here and you can switch between modes down here as well give me a sec guys so more about the wheel itself it can actually do three full turns so 1080 degrees rotation which means you are not limited to you know driving your car like in your mario kart style no you can actually turn the wheel when you're trying to turn the car which is very cool as well now they talk a quite quite a bit about the the powerful quick responding force feedback but what's equally important if you're going to have powerful force feedback is having a way to stop it so it has a rigid motorized stopper no matter what angle of rotation you've selected it will be able to respond the way that the game intends in the way that the car would have intended assuming the game is an accurate representation of the car which not all of them are but some of them are pretty close I'm given to understand so right okay fluid move action silent system seems to be not very loud although I don't own a ps3 so I actually have no way of verifying right the size of the wheels 12 inches so if you guys don't want to see an iPhone comparison then I'll just tell you in real real measurements it's 30 centimetres or 12 inches and sorry there were 12 12 buttons not 10 that was my mistake before oh right then piece in the middle so this is actually brushed aluminum and looks really sharp so you got the rubberized outside and then the brushed aluminum inside and the shiny again inner piece here it looks very very sharp although I think you guys can clearly see that for yourself now in terms of mounting mechanisms you got your rubber grip enos here you got a way to mount it to the bottom of something here you've got a variety of different mounting options so yeah it's big yeah takes up space in your house but if you are a racing enthusiast then it is probably a compromise that you are willing to make though I think that pretty much wraps it up it does have internal memory so you can upgrade the firmware which is something I've forgotten all right no last thing 65,536 like data points or poling points or positions around the wheel so what that means is okay basically here's the extreme examples if you're using a d-pad to play a racing game you know how you kind of in order to get like a like a sorry a light turn you have to kind of like tap it once in a while because the only two positions you have are like it and like this which is not realistic this has 65,000 Plus 65,536 positions all the way around the wheel which means if you make a slight adjustment your car will genuinely make a slight adjustment so that granularity of control is again one of the things that sets apart are more you know legit racing wheel from something that is well not as legit and not as well not as expensive I guess but if you really want to play racing games and be comfortable and you know more accurate driving experience and there you go this seems pretty pretty awesome actually I kind of want to try and I wish I had a ps3 I wish I had the PC version though is actually what I wish I had but there you go so that is my unboxing of the T 500 we're going to pretend it's not the RS I'm going to call it the T 500 don't forget to subscribe to Linus tech tips for more unboxings reviews and other computer videos