First, a word of warning. If you clicked on this link because you’ve been thinking about getting yourself a handy, light, portable steering wheel peripheral that you can stuff in a drawer between sessions, you’ve come to the wrong place.
The box that the Revosim PURE comes in has the surreal heft of a gold bar, and almost everything that comes out of it during the installation process could be used to inflict decisive blunt force trauma.
Once assembled, it’s clear that the Revosim PURE is not a steering wheel for dilettantes. It’s a steering wheel for people who want to get as close as humanly possible to turning their gaming space into a cockpit, complete with reassuringly chunky pedals and a wheel that feels like it could have been stolen that morning from an MG roadster.
It’s a steering wheel for people who are willing to dedicate a significant amount of time (not to mention storage space) to the project of making racers as authentic and exciting as they can possibly be.
If you’re one of those people, read on.
First Impressions and Set-Up
Weight is not necessarily a perfect indicator of quality in a bit of kit, but there’s no denying that the sheer heft of the Revosim PURE’s parts – particularly the chunky, extruded aluminium wheelbase that houses the force feedback motor, power supply, bearing stack, and high precision 21-bit encoder, among other things – is reassuring before you’ve even mounted it on your desk and slotted in the wheel.
The steering wheel itself feels and looks authentic, notwithstanding the completely necessary array of customisable buttons.
Setting up the Revosim PURE is a relatively lengthy process involving tools, instruction booklets, and a certain amount of confusion depending on your level of experience. If you’ve assembled your fair share of IKEA furniture, you’ll be fine. If not, I recommend finding a partner to make the process more manageable.
Aspects of the set-up can be fiddly, and dropping the wheelbase on your bare feet will cause lasting regret from even a relatively low height, but once you’ve attached the clamps and secured the device to your desk it feels pleasingly sturdy. We found that the wheel sat slightly high, obscuring the bottom of the screen, but it was nothing that couldn’t be solved by sitting up straight, raising our desk chair, or even propping up our monitor on a couple of books.
Cable management is an issue, so it’s worth getting everything in the right place before plugging in.
Specs
For the price, the Revosim PURE has an impressive set of racing specs, including 9 Nm peak torque, a 21-bit encoder, RJ45 connections for shifter, brakes, and clutch, and a real-time Bluetooth telemetry feature through the Revosim app, which also lets you customise force feedback, steering angle, dead zones, and more. Even more helpfully, the Revosim PURE comes with a phone cradle so that you can have all this at your fingertips while you drive.
The brake pedal uses a 100kg load cell sensor, as well as three elastomers to tune the stiffness of the brake. The angle of the pedals is adjustable, too.
The 30cm wheel is upholstered with perforated pleather and it comes with 12 buttons that you can map in software and customise physically with swappable covers in different colours. There are stickers, too. Behind the wheel you’ll find two sturdy metal paddle shifters, and there’s a rotary dial in the middle of the unit, along with a 9-LED RPM indicator.
The Revosim PURE stacks up pretty well against the competition. It’s slightly behind the Simagic Alpha Mini in terms of torque and encoding speed, but on the flip side it doesn’t have the same overheating issues as that model. It’s also better value than most rivals, since it comes as a bundle with all the parts you need to get on the road.
The only chink in the Revosim PURE’s armour is its relative newness to the market, meaning you’re more likely to come across compatibility issues and a paucity of modification options, exacerbated by the fact that only Revosim wheels will work with the base unit.
Revosim has promised that there are more peripherals in the pipeline, including a shifter, handbrake, and clutch pedal, but for now the ecosystem is a little bit limited.
Performance
On the track, where it really matters, the Revosim PURE is a joy. The motor provides force feedback that is both powerful and detailed, allowing you to feel bumps in the road, curbs, skids, and changes in track surface through your hands.
This feedback is so convincing that it actually forces you to become a better driver as you learn how to handle oversteer, loose surfaces, water on the road, and other hazards.
The adjustable pedals, meanwhile, feel sturdy and authentic. If you’ve got the pedals on a slippery surface like a wooden floor you’ll struggle to keep them in place, but there are ways around that – such as increasing the elasticity and sitting it on a non-slip mat. The accelerator, meanwhile, is smooth and responsive, giving you a real sense of control over your virtual vehicle.
The app is central to the whole experience, not only allowing you to consume driving data in real time but also allowing you to make adjustments to all aspects of the wheel’s performance. But, like various aspects of the Revosim PURE experience, it has the feel of a thing that is still in development rather than fully realised.
Conclusion
The Revosim PURE is a strong opening gambit, particularly for the price. It has crashed into the high-end steering wheel market like a ram raider, and alarms are surely going off in the headquarters of rival manufacturers.
But there are trade-offs. For a tempting price you’re getting a bit of hardware that’s difficult to fault, but lacks customisation options – at least for now. You’re getting a powerful app, but one that’s lacking a bit of polish – at least for now. And you’re getting a peripheral that’s a joy to use, but which lacks the out-of-the-box compatibility of more established players – at least for now.
Whether to plump for a Revosim PURE is your call to make, but if you’re going that way then this would be a good moment to strike. To mark the sombre occasion known as Black Friday, Revosim has reduced the price of this bundle from $799.99 to $599.99 (and from £699.99 to £549.99 in the United Kingdom).
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