XB 360 Official Steering Wheel - worth getting

[shiffy]

I'm thinking of purchasing an Xbox 360 steering wheel. But before I take the plunge, I would like a few opinions from people who already own one.

My main concern is build quality. The first wheel that I ever got got was for the PS1 (Madcatz) & was "spring" used to create the tension was actually elastic. I'm sure things have moved on since then. So, how durable is it? Are the pedals well made with durable springs?

The ideal situation would be to bolt this to a desk. Unfortunately, I don't have a spare table to bolt this to. How usable is it while resting the wheel on your lap?

How is this powered? I'm assuming it's using the recharge pad packs. And how long do the batteries last?

Basically, I'm tempted to buy one. But ?80 is a lot of money if it's not up to par. (any places I could get this for less than ?80?) Any thoughts, either positive or negative, will be greatly appreciated.

[tom-nook]

The official wheel is excellent. Really solidly built, responsive & comfortable to use & the pedals are preety good too.

Didn't try it on my lap (& now sold my 360 so can't test..) but wouldn't imagine that it'd be particularly easy to use.

Whilst MS like to advertise it as a wireless wheel it isn't really. It does wirelessly hook up to the 360 but there's a wire running between the wheel & the pedals. Also to get force feedback you need to plug it into the mains with the supplied psu (makes sense as the feedback would drain batteries very rapidly!). You can run it with a controller battery but you only get rumble that way. Think the battery lasts about the same length as it would in a wireless pad.

The only real negative is that there are very few games that include force feedback support at the mo' ( PGR3, NFS: Carbon & Test Drive Unlimited iirc). PGR3 is superb with the wheel & it really adds something to the game. Not sure how good the other two though as the handling is a bit less realistic.

£80 is a lot of cash but in terms of the quality of the wheel I'd probably say it's worth it if you're planning on getting Forza 2 & PGR 4.