Playseat Challenge Review

Lawn chair on roids.

Happy 2016 folks, hope everyone is enjoying the holidays so far. For a couple years now I've been running my old Logitech G27 racing wheel off an old Walmart end table that was rattling itself apart every time I used it. It finally went bust when I got my much heavier Thrustmaster T500 RS so I needed something to replace it. The problem is, racing rigs are expensive as hell and the budget inclined wheel stands don't really do much justice. Also I had limited space and needed something that wouldn't take up an ungodly amount of room. Luckily Playseat had the answer to all my problems, and it comes in the form of a piece of lawn furniture on steroids. Let's see if it works.

Alcantara and stitching detail.

The Challenge is sort of on it's own in the racing rig market. Probably the closet thing that has come close to it is Fanatec's CSL but that doesn't even fold, unlike the Challenge. Assembling the rig is easy enough as it's simply just tube fittings and heavy duty velcro to attach the actual seat. It isn't terribly heavy weighing in at about 20 pounds but this will also be affected by whatever you plan on mounting on it.

Adjustable velcro strap detail.

While it might not seem very strong, the velcro seating can actually support up to around 250 pounds. The straps can also be adjusted to virtually any position to make the seat perfectly suited to your needs. The sling like seat also conforms to your shape to it's great for long term racing sessions as well. As for adjustability for your gear, you can raise and lower the angle of the wheel and lengthen or shorten the pedal base depending on how long your legs are. It may be a little bit difficult to get in and out of since you sit pretty low to the ground so I would keep the seat's adjustment within a limit that you can handle. There are no height adjustments for the pedals but this hasn't been an issue at all for me.

T500 RS pedals mounted.

Mounting your gear is surprisingly easy. While most seats require you to use the table clamps or physically drill out mounting holes into the wheel deck, the Challenge has pre-drilled holes for most major wheel brands out there, including my big and heavy T500 RS and if not, you can just clamp them onto the deck like normal. The wheel just bolts right in with two bolts and it's good to go. The pedals on the other hand strap on the pedal base without any hard mounting. They are pretty secure when in use and don't move around at all but in my case, the T500 RS pedals are bit of an issue when folding the rig up but I'll touch on that later.

The rig comes with velcro straps to hold your wires.

Along with the very versatile mounting system, the Challenge also comes with another essential for setting up a rig, wire maintenance. That's right, the Challenge comes with a crap ton of small velcro straps to keep your wires secured to the rig and out of the way. Another thing to note is that the rig comes with a small slide out kickstand to help stabilize the thing when you flip open the wheel deck in order to get in and out of the rig and it does help, provided you're not using something as massive as the T500 RS, which still causes it to want to flip over.

RAM motorcycle GPS mount to hold my shifter.

Another slight annoyance I found is the lack of a mounting place for a shifter, something that the CSL has. I remedied this by using a modified heavy duty motorcycle GPS mount to mount my TH8A shifter and it works quite well, it also fixed the balancing issue whenever I flipped open the wheel deck. Thanks a bunch physics. But once you have everything in place and you are actually racing, it feels remarkably solid. The wheel deck does have slight amount of up and down wobble but it's not very noticeable and the rest of the rig barely has any unintended movement at all. What's also nice that unlike most rigs or wheel stands, this has no center post so your aren't straddling a metal bar with your legs the whole time. Pretty stable and comfortable all things considered and it surprised me quite a bit.

Folds up nicely for storage.

But easily the best feature of the Challenge is it's ability to fold and be stowed away in a closet or something. Unfortunately for me, the T500 RS pedals have this huge crossbar going across the top the pedals that prevents me from completely folding the rig up and I have to stow it sort of half assedly in the corner next to my TV where the old battered end table used to call itself home. However, if you had normal pedals without a crossbar like mine, the rig should fold up into a rather manageable state. If you properly improvise a shifter onto the side like I did, it's won't interfere with this feature. So that brings me to the verdict on the Challenge, it's a very high quality rig that solves a very important problem for sim racing fans; fitting a full sized rig into a small amount of space and it does it with a great amount of versatility. Yeah it got a few quirks about it like the lack of a shifter mount and it's threat of it tipping over when it's opened up if you got a super heavy wheel mounted on the deck; maybe even the fact I can't fold it completely with my setup but that's more of my own issue for owning pedals like that, but overall it really sets out to do what it's intended to do and it nails it right on the head. This is the the solution for lack of space and if not that, it's great for starters too. At about $250, it slots right in between most wheel stands and full blown rigs in terms of price, and for something so capable it's pretty good value. Sure it may look a little bit hokey at first glance but it really is a game changer and it has my recommendation

Is It Better Than?

Fanatec CSL- Yes, the CSL is priced at around $50 more than the Challenge and it's about the closest thing out there to it. And while it does have a shifter mount unfortunately this thing is plagued by it's awkward, uncomfortable seating position and it feels unstable at times. It can retract into a slightly more compact size but unlike the Challenge, it can't completely fold. The Challenge is a better buy overall, and it's cheaper too.