Review: Logitech G25 Force Feedback Racing Wheel - Part IV

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For The Love Of The Hobby

During the writing of this review, I sent several e-mail requests for additional information to our contacts at Logitech. What impressed me was the quickness, eagerness and enthusiasm of the responses that I got back. It's obvious that these folks clearly enjoyed developing this product. That attitude is reflected in the feature set and quality of the G25.

My intent was to only paraphrase the comments I received back, fleshing out the review where appropriate... until I got this response. I would like to share with you a directly quoted excerpt because it impressed upon me the person’s attention-to-detail and enthusiasm in crafting the G25, and reveals a glimpse at the efforts Logitech went to in an attempt to raise the bar on force feedback wheels:

“The neatest piece of engineering on the pedals (in my opinion) is actually one of the smallest. The potentiometer shaft fits through the side of the pedal arm, and a nut is tightened over its threads such that it's held stationary. A spring and a gear are slipped over that — the spring keeps the pot-side gear loaded to remove backlash from the system. This gear meshes with one attached to the pedal arm. The use of the two gears does two beneficial things — first, it keeps all the load from the pedal arm moving off of the potentiometer shaft, thereby restricting its movement to the direction of rotation only. Second, since the pot-mounted gear has a spring on it, the teeth are always engaged against the teeth of the gear on the pedal arm side, meaning that any movement of the pedal translates into movement on the pot, so there is no mechanical deadband at the beginning of pedal movement. Obviously if the developer wants one they can put it there in software, but from the hardware side movement = input, no matter how slight.”

Conclusion

After only a month’s use, it’s clear to me that the G25 is without peer in the mass-production, race sim controller market. Despite its hefty $300 price tag, a few quirks in the placement of buttons and the sometimes vague or imprecise feel of the innovative dual-mode shifter, overall the G25 exudes quality construction and attention to detail. With its wide variety of features and operating modes, it’s quite an entertainment value for the price. Although time will tell on the durability of the individual components over long-term use, the G25 appears at the outset to be a worthy purchase for any hard-core sim racer. I’d give it two thumbs up, and a score of 9.6 out of 10. Congratulations and Thank You to the folks at Logitech for producing this enjoyable product with which to further our hobby. I only hope it won’t be the last quality racing controller from Logitech.

System Specs

• Intel Pentium 4 3 GHz CPU (Retail, with heat sink and fan)
  
  
• Asus P4C800 Deluxe motherboard
  
  
• 1GB of Corsair 3200/400 DDR Ram (2x 512 MB DIMMS)
  
  
• NVIDIA GeForce 6800GT
  
  
• Creative Audigy 2 ZS sound card
  
  
• WD Raptor 74GB HDD
  
  
• DirectX Version 9.0c
  
  
• Windows XP Pro with SP2

Available at Amazon.com: Logitech G25 Racing Wheel

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