Thrustmaster T248 vs Logitech G29

The G29's gear-drive system was competitive in 2015 and honest ever since: strong centering forces delivered with a permanent mechanical graininess, every gear tooth reporting for duty through the rim. The T248's HYBRID DRIVE — gears for force, a belt stage to civilise them — arrived six years later and it reads like it: 70% more power than Thrustmaster's own previous budget tier, delivered with noticeably less texture. Neither wheel threatens belt-drive smoothness, but in back-to-back GT7 laps the T248 communicates weight transfer and slip while the G29 mostly communicates that it has gears.

The T248 also lets you switch three feedback presets on the fly from the wheel — proportional, skid-enhanced, or boosted — which in practice means guests and hot-lappers share one wheel without touching a settings menu. The G29 has no answer to this.

Respect where due: the G29 is one of the most-proven pieces of gaming hardware ever made. A decade of market presence, millions of units, and a failure rate that made it the default recommendation for years — its dense little chassis and metal pedal set shrug off treatment that would unsettle plusher wheels. The T248 is solidly made (7.5 is a good score) with a leather-wrapped rim the G29 can't match for touch, but the veteran takes the round on sheer track record. One caveat that softens the win: the G29's potentiometer-based internals are its known ageing weakness — which leads directly to round three.

This is the round that decides year five. The G29's pedals and axes read through potentiometers — physical contacts that wear, develop scratchy spots and drift with use; ask any long-term owner about the throttle spike. The T248's paddles and its T3PM pedal set are contactless magnetic (H.E.A.R.T): 12-bit precision on PC, four brake spring configurations, and — because nothing rubs — the same feel in year five as day one. Add the race dashboard screen (20+ telemetry and settings displays) and 25 buttons with two dual encoders against the G29's basic cluster, and the generational gap stops being subtle.

List prices sit close — T248 at AED 899–999, G29 at AED 799–999 — and at parity the T248 is simply more wheel. But the G29 is retail's favourite discount bait: White Friday and Ramadan sales regularly push it to AED 650–750, where a casual racer gets a legendarily tough wheel for two-thirds of the money. Our rule of thumb: at AED 800+, T248 without hesitation; under AED 750, the G29 becomes defensible for casual use — go in knowing its sensors age and its features are 2015's.