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Are you using your smartphone for navigation, voice-to-text, and music while driving? Maybe you have wireless Apple CarPlay but still want to secure your phone and charge it while driving. Or maybe, you just want to always know where your phone is, so it’s easy to grab and go when exiting your car.
With a market full of smartphone offerings, and users’ demands even more varied, you can imagine that accessory manufacturers still haven’t nailed down the perfect way to hold onto those devices. They can clamp, clip, or use magnets to hold the phone. Then, you have to decide if you need to charge and if you do, is it wireless or plugged-in? Lastly, do you want to secure your mount using a suction cup, clipped to a vent, or even stuck on with an adhesive pad? Don’t worry, there’s a phone mount for every use case, and some of the best are rounded up below.
Summary List
- Best Overall: iOttie Velox Magnetic Air Vent Phone Holder
- Best Value: Scosche MagicMount Lex Suction Cup Mount
- Best Action Mount: Peak Design System
- Best Cupholder Phone: iBolt Custom Phone and Tablet Holder
- Honorable Mention: RAM Mounts X-Grip Phone Mount
Our Methodology
To quote our own Jonathon Klein, “These guides are living documents.” It’s estimated that roughly 3 billion photos are uploaded to the Internet every day. There aren’t quite that many new car phone mounts introduced to the market, but it may not be far off. So what is the best way to hold your smartphone today, may not be tomorrow. So I will continue to update this guide as we test more mounts. If you have a favorite mount, let us know. If you’re a manufacturer of mega mounts, mail one out, man.
I started out this guide by doing research online, and talking to my co-editors who all have opinions – boy howdy do they have opinions. Then, it was ordering up some products and seeing what worked and what didn’t. As you’ve probably already guessed, I quickly discovered that like just about every consumer product out there, “best whatever” is hugely subjective by use case. I’ve tried to cover a few of them here and pick out mounts that work well in those cases.
Best Car Phone Mounts Reviews And Recommendations
Best Overall: iOttie Velox Magnetic Air Vent Phone Holder
Pros
- Simple, fast, and efficient in both installation and use
- Fits on the air vents of 99% of the cars on the market
- Easy to remove to transfer to other cars
Cons
- The magnets are not strong enough for bigger phones
- For best results you need to use a phone case designed for magnetic mounts
Amazon and other online retailers sell literally hundreds of different phone mounts for your car. Most people are looking for something easy to install and easy to use. A vent mount like this from iOttie installs, literally in seconds and it works on most cars on the market. Jaguar and Mercedes owners with cool jet engine vents will need to look elsewhere. For attaching your phone, a magnetic mount is by far the easiest and quickest method, literally hold your phone up to it when you get in and grab and go when you exit the car.
There are a lot of options that look just like this one, but the iOttie is made from quality plastics that will hold up over time, even in hot climates. It comes in either blue or black and works with a wide variety of phones. If you have a heavier-than-average phone, like an iPhone Pro Max, you will need to look for a different mount. My experience says that for heavier phones, you need a physical connection like a clamp.
This particular mount has no charging abilities, but it is well out of the way of cables so that won’t be an issue. For slightly more money, iOttie does offer basically the same mount but with wireless charging.
Best Value: Scosche MagicMount Flex Suction Cup Mount
Pros
- Flex arm is Gumby-like in its adjustability unlike hinged pivot mounts
- Suction cup is surprisingly strong but easy to remove with the release lever
- It’s hard to beat the price of this mount, especially from a known and trusted brand like Scosche
Cons
- Again, the magnet mounts are nice, but it won’t hold the heavyweights of the phone world
- Some windshields are just too far away for this to be a usable option
Sorry McLaren Elva drivers, this one isn’t for you. Slapping a suction cup on the inside of the windshield is the de facto method of mounting driving peripherals in your car even decades before the plush Garfield craze of the 1980s. They work incredibly well and are easy to install and remove. With an extra adhesive pad, you can even stick them to surfaces like your dashboard – but that’s kind of defeating the point. Like the suction cup itself, this phone mount from Scosche totally sucks, but in a good way.
Besides offering the ease of mounting in the car, the flexible arm has nearly infinite adjustability. You can turn it, and curve it, if it were longer, I imagine you could tie it in a knot. Your phone is held on with magnets, but I’ll say this again to ensure everyone sees it, it won’t hold the big boys. My iPhone Pro Max did the comedic, slow slide down the mount until it eventually fell off, in bench testing. I won’t even bother trying it in the car. My wife’s Pro, non-max, held on just fine.
Scosche is a brand with a long history of making quality electronics peripherals and accessories for them. The plastic feels high-quality and will probably last several generations of yearly updated phones. It comes with the aforementioned adhesive pad allowing you to stick the suction up to just about any surface, but again, why? At the time of writing this, a single mount was under 20 bucks and a two-pack was 30 bucks. If you really want a magnetic, suction cup mount, this is hard to beat.
Best Action Phone Mount: Peak Design System
Pros
- A clip-in system that offers the versatility for use in cars, on bikes, and even in UTVs
- The cases look great and all the different accessories are extremely high-quality
- The variety of mounting styles is basically endless with the use of action camera and photo accessories
Cons
- This isn’t a cheap system especially if you start getting into specialized pieces for bikes and motorcycles
- Although removing and clipping in the phone is easy, installing some of the mounting system isn’t
I can hear a lot of you furiously typing complaints already, this isn’t a car phone mount that you just buy it, install it, and go. This is more like the LEGO of phone mounts, and you may be able to buy a kit that’s easy to assemble, or you may end up having to use your imagination to build what it is you’re after. Also like LEGO, it’s kinda pricey for building blocks.
It starts with a phone case, available for most popular smartphones, with a receiver on the back Peak Design calls a SlimLink. It offers a mechanical click-in connection with mounts without disrupting the ability to wirelessly charge your phone. A huge variety of mount types are available ranging from simple adhesive and vent mount parts, all the way up to roll cage and handlebar clamps. We’ve tested this out in Klein’s Can-Am and E-bike, after miles of off-road testing, there was never a need to call IT to report his iPhone missing in action. Not yet, at least.
Even if you can’t find a suitable mount in Peak Design’s catalog, it offers parts that will allow you to connect the SlimLink receiver mount to GoPro’s system and also to 1-inch ball and socket system. There are also mini tripods, mounts for quarter-twenty photography standard, if you can’t find a way to make this work for holding your phone on whatever vehicle it is you’re operating, you’ll probably be better off just holding your Pixel in your teeth.
Best Heavy Duty Cupholder Phone Mount: iBolt Custom Phone and Tablet Holder
Pros
- Cupholder insert adjusts to fit the size of your car without extra parts
- Customizable system allows you to build the mount you need from a wide variety of components
- Heavy duty mounts and phone grabbing devices can be used for motorcycles, offroad and action sports
Cons
- This is another system that requires you to buy multiple pieces
- The initial investment for the system can be considerably higher than disposable mounts
Like Peak Design, iBolt is another system for mounting devices instead of being a simple phone mount. I’ve chosen the cupholder mount as the starting point, simply to demonstrate another option in the guide. This particular mount is expandable, so whether you have the tiny European-sized cupholders meant for Red Bull-sized cans or you have real ‘Merican cupholders designed to hold a 48 oz Glutton Gulp, this will fit. More importantly, it won’t involve keeping track of extra pieces to change sizes.
The system is based on a 1-inch ball and socket joints with arms available in multiple lengths. This is a secure design with tons of adjustability. The clamps for holding devices are equally tough and are available in sizes that will allow you to hold small phones all the way to tablets.
If you don’t like the cupholder, you can choose from magnetic, suction cup, bolt-down, and clamps. As with anything customizable, prior planning will yield the best results. Do some measurements, figure out where you want the device and where the mount will go, and order up exactly what you need.
Honorable Mention: RAM Mounts X-Grip Phone Mount
Pros
- X-Grip clamp holds your phone far tighter than any magnet every will
- RAM’s suction mount uses a twist lock design that holds tight to windshields
- Customizable with different bases using ball and socket joints
Cons
- Putting phone in and taking out requires two hands for all but the most dexterous
- RAM doesn’t offer a vent mount, but you could probably make another brand work
I initially selected this RAM mount based on the X-Grip clamp that holds your phone. The spring-tensioned device holds onto your device with four rubber bumpers and offers clamping forces high enough to keep it secure even on bikes. The suction cup mount is equally worthy of praise. The twist lock actuation provides secure mounting on the levels of pro-level rigging mounts I’ve used in the past to hold action cameras to the outside of cars on race tracks.
Like some of the other mounts on this list, the RAM system uses balls and sockets to allow different-sized arms to change the length while the joints themselves give the mount huge articulation. You could make this thing two feet long if you really wanted, but it wouldn’t be stable.
Like the other systems in the guide, this is going to look pretty expensive next to the literally countless options you can find online which are basically throw-away purchases. This will last you years and is adaptable as your needs change. By once, cry once – as the old saying goes.
Our Verdict
The minimalistic iOttie Velox Magnetic Air Vent Phone Holder offers a simple-to-install, simple-to-use design that will keep your phone secure. It’s also built with high-quality materials and is sure to last. If you’re on a slightly tighter budget, and don’t want to block your vents, the Scosche MagicMount Lex Suction Cup Mount might be a better pick.
FAQs
You’ve got questions. The Drive has answers.
A: Some car phone mount companies list compatible phone models, but actual measurements are a better guide. Use the factory specifications for your phone or measure diagonally from the top and bottom of your screen.
A: Sometimes. Cases add bulk and weight to the phone, so consider the phone mount type and case-friendly features. Some gravity phone holders work better without a case, and thick cases can reduce magnet holders’ effectiveness.
A: No. The car phone holder magnets themselves do not cause damage to the phone or battery. Phones use solid-state storage and memory unaffected by magnets.
A: It can. If you want a magnetic phone holder and use wireless charging, be aware that the steel magnetic mounting plate can interfere with the power transfer. Mounting the steel plate to the case and removing the phone for wireless charging is a good solution.
A: Yes. Excessive heat can reduce the performance and longevity of your phone over time. Some phones have a built-in thermal overload shutdown feature, but this won’t help if the phone gets blasted with heat from an external source. Consider a different style of car phone mount if running your heater is a necessity.
