Logitech G923 Review | Long Term Extended Use Review
When it comes to entry level sim racing hardware, we automatically think of the Logitech G series steering wheels. Arguably the most popular steering wheel game controllers in the world, there are still tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of old logitech wheels in daily use throughout the world, and probably the same number strewn in attics and wardrobes.
Today, having spent a few weeks with this wheel, I take a look at the latest offering from Logitech, the G923. I’m Laurence, welcome to the channel.
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- Introduction
On the left you’ll see all the sections in this video. I’ve put timestamped links to each section in the description below. While you’re down there please hit the thumbs up button to help YouTube to suggest this video to others like you. Please consider subscribing and hit the notification bell if you want to be notified about upcoming reviews. 70% of the people who watch my videos are not subscribed to the channel.
Logitech sent me this wheel for testing and I accepted it on one condition. I wanted to use it as if it was my own, and wanted to keep it for an extended period of time, so i ditched my Direct Drive steering wheel, and my load cell pedals, and used the G923 exclusively for just over 2 weeks. That meant that all my sim related activity, videos, streams and practice were all done using the G923 during that time. I felt that this was the only fair way to judge this wheel, as spending only a few hours with it would be unjust, like comparing a tenting holiday to a 5 star hotel stay. I needed to rely on it, depend on it and personally, I really wanted to fall in love with the Logitech wheel all over again.
- What’s new?
The biggest talking point about this new steering wheel is how at a glance, it’s not much different to its predecessors. The logitech G923 does sport a number of new features which weren’t previously available. I’ll cover them in a little bit more detail in their dedicated sections, but the main differences are the upgraded brake spring, the nifty dual clutch functionality, and TRUEFORCE, the branding they’ve put on the technology which provides largely improved response times and what they refer to as vibrotactile effects, which are similar to those produced by a tactile transducer or bass shaker.
The G923 actually comes in 2 versions. An Xbox compatible version, and a PS4 compatible version. Unlike the previous generation, they now share a name but both of them are compatible with PC.
- Brake pedal
The second i unboxed this product, I pressed the pedals with my hands and noticed a slight difference to what i was expecting. I’ve linked to that unboxing video in the card above. Logitech never mentioned anything about any brake upgrades in any of the marketing material i saw, so i dismissed my gut instincts at the time. It was only when Will, from Boosted Media took them apart that he noticed that they’ve incorporated a new progressive spring. This may seem like a small thing but it gives you a far clearer muscle memory map than just having a regular linear spring, like its predecessors. In all my testing of this wheel in the past 2 weeks, all my competitive races across multiple sims, The brakes weren’t an issue for me. I was expecting it to be a massive struggle but although my braking wasn’t as good as with my regular load cell pedals, it was far better than with my old G27 which i used for 5 years.
- Dual clutch technology
This feature was advertised in their marketing material and I didn’t know what to expect from it. The steering wheel doesn’t feature dual clutch paddles, which was the main confusing bit. Being quite attached to my dual clutch paddles on my other steering wheels, I see real value in this feature. Bear in mind that my Simagic GT4 costs €650 and my Cube Controls Formula CSX2 is a €1500 wheel. And Logitech is offering the same functionality on a €400 package which includes the wheelbase and pedals. That’s definite food for thought, as a clutch paddle upgrade can cost almost half of the entire cost of this entire product.
What’s more, the dual clutch functionality is controlled fully by the G923 itself, meaning that any game which supports a traditional clutch, is supported. I wonder how Logitech thought to include this functionality in this product. It suggests to me that they’re focusing a little more on simulation than in the past maybe, as traditionally, the arcade market would have been the main target.
I covered this functionality in a dedicated video which i’ve linked in the cards above.
- Trueforce
Trueforce is the branding that logitech has put on the new smarts that make this wheel better than its predecessor. It consists of haptic or vibrotactile feedback and also higher sample rates and clever algorithms and processing which make the wheel much quicker to respond than its predecessors.
The vibrotactile feedback sends vibrations through the steering wheel which you wouldn’t otherwise feel, but is only supported by certain game titles. So it’s easy to be led to believe that Trueforce doesn’t apply to other titles when in fact, I think that the signals from marketing may have gotten crossed a little. I was led to believe that Trueforce was just a simple rumble feature to make you feel more through the wheel. Turns out, it’s more than that. The wheel is much much quicker to respond even in titles like Assetto Corsa and Dirt2.0. Whatever they’ve done to the smarts has given these old motors and gears a new lease of life. You need to play around with your settings a bit, as older logitech wheel settings don’t seem to work on this wheel at all.
Truth be told, despite a surprisingly good driving experience in iRacing, I didn’t initially notice much improvement over the older wheels in other titles, until I tried to drift with this wheel in Assetto corsa. Then it became very apparent that the reaction speed is exponentially quicker than its predecessors. When i did try it in iRacing, I was extremely satisfied with the driving experience, again, with the right settings. I felt a lot through the wheel although i didn’t have the same level of confidence that i would have with a higher spec wheel.
The vibrotactile feedback is nice, but only when it’s very subtle. If you run it solely off the game audio, it just gets confused when there’s lots of sound and your wheelbase also effectively becomes a speaker. As in, if you mute your game sound, you actually hear game noise from the wheelbase, which is odd to say the least. iRacing allows you to set the config in such a way that the vibration is a little more clever, responding to the game via the trueforce api rather than using just the game audio. I really enjoyed the feel of the gear shifts through the steering wheel and in general the wheel felt better than any Logitech wheel live used in the past.
As for trueforce support in other titles, Logitech told me that they would love to see both companies and modders take on the trueforce API and try to make the most of it.
- Encoders and buttons
One of my gripes with the previous generation of G wheel, was the rotary encoder which just didn’t really work well, if at all. It was very loose with a poor detent and very hit and miss registration of inputs. Sometimes you would scroll and nothing would happen, and other times you would scroll and it would register 2 inputs with each click. The one on this G923 does seem a little better. The detent is slightly firmer and more predictable, however if you move the encoder too quickly or too slowly, it doesn’t register any input at all. It’s always going to be an entry level rotary encoder, but it’s definitely more usable than previous versions of this wheel.
- Support
The wheel launched with support for iRacing, Assetto Corsa Competizione, GRID 2019 and Gran Turismo Sport. Although support for iRacing requires some manual setup, native support from within the iRacing UI is coming, along with support for F1 2020 and Dirt Rally 2.0.
The wheel features rev gauge LEDs where you would have found them on a Logitech G27 and on the G29. The G920 never had these as xbox never supported these LEDs and funnily enough, the XboX version which I got to test, seemed to have a problem whereby the Rev lights wouldn’t work in Assetto corsa. They worked fine in iracing but when I contacted Logitech they told me that LED support for the XBOX version is not yet release but will be released soon via a firmware upgrade. If you’re experiencing that issue, Logitech say it will be sorted out soon.
I’ve never had the best relationship with Logitech Hub and Logitech profiler. From having to run an ancient version of profiler to get the best out of my G27, I have never had the best experience with Logitech software. I own a lot of Logitech products and still use my relatively old Logitech G19s keyboard. However, I had to uninstall that software to be able to use the new Logitech hub properly and although the new profiler recognised my C920 camera, it didn’t support my keyboard.
I also ran into a small issue initially where the wheel just didn’t feel right, dual clutch wasn’t working and I ended up uninstalling the Logitech hub and the usb drivers for the steering wheel. That sorted out my issues but wasn’t a great initial experience. If i had only had the device for a few hours, this might have been a terrible review. This is an entry level wheel and if I wasn’t tech savvy, I wouldn’t have managed to uninstall it all and get it all working. Some people love the software but I can’t ever seem to gel with it.
- Cost
This is my biggest gripe with this wheel. The cost jump between the previous generation of this wheel and this one is over €100. The G923 costs €400 which puts it firmly in the price range of entry level belt drive systems.
I’m not sure what the thinking is from Logitech but I can only imagine that their competitors are loving the new price point. Logitech is extremely good at marketing and many people who buy Logitech wheels are just looking for a game controller and not necessarily a piece of sim racing hardware. I bet they know what they’re doing, but I can’t help but think that the Logitech Trueforce and Logitech g923 story isn’t finished yet.
- Final thought
The release of this wheel was pretty controversial. At the outset, it looked like the same old wheel rebranded with a random new number in the name and an inflated price tag, all served on a bed of high budget marketing featuring the decorated Formula 1 driver, Fernando Alonso.
This didn’t go down too well with the sim racing community, many of whom sparked their passion for sim racing with Logitech hardware, but soon outgrew it and were forced to shift their brand loyalty to Thrustmaster or Fanatec. I think that people want more from Logitech and the backlash towards this product has come largely from people who aren’t even in the market to buy an entry level steering wheel.
Regardless, 99% of the people with an opinion haven’t had the opportunity to use the G923 yet. I’m in the lucky 1% who got to make up my own mind and I have to say, I’m pleasantly surprised. Is it good enough to upgrade your previous G wheels? Well, that depends if you like the new features enough. The better brake, quicker response times and other new tech make a sting case for anyone buying their first wheel. My gut is saying that you should wait for a sale when the price is a little closer to the older models. However, second hand value of Logitech wheels is always stable so the cost of upgrading probably comes in at around 250euro for most people.
My 2 week stint with the wheel could have gone either way. I use a Direct Drive wheel and load cell pedals normally so switching from a high end setup to a low end setup for all of my official league racing and other content was frustrating at times but thoroughly rewarding. I did rekindle my love and respect for Logitech though. Maybe not as much as I had hoped, but seeing dual clutch technology on there really got my imagination going. Here’s a company that makes a game controller come entry level sim racing wheel, and they’re putting a dual clutch on it. It doesn’t really fit in with my picture of what a Logitech wheel has been to date. But I see Logitech taking some positive steps towards simulation with the increased granularity in feedback, dual clutch and better brake, All things that they didn’t really need if they were concentrating solely on the arcade market. Granted, the TRUEFORCE vibration is good when harnessed properly like in iRacing when it uses the game physics, but a bit of an arcady gimmick when run solely off the game audio.
I’m disappointed that Logitech STILL don’t have a handbrake peripheral. Console owners and PC owners are screaming for this simple accessory which seems well within Logitech’s capability to provide, but doesn’t seem to be on their radar.
I must say also that although I’m just a small time channel with 3,000 subscribers, Logitech treated me with amazing respect, answering my questions very directly and promptly. They even watched all my videos and went the extra mile by responding directly to comments made by my subscribers on my videos. This type of ear to the ground makes me think that Logitech knows EXACTLY what they’re doing with this product, the price point and more excitingly, the future.
I’d love to hear what you think in the comments below. Don’t forget to hit that like button if you like this review and do subscribe and hit the bell if you want to stay up to date with future videos like this. I’m Laurence, thanks a million for watching, and I’ll chat to ye later.
