Drive Safe With These Affordable Car Phone Holders

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Whether mounted on the dash or clasped to an air vent, car phone holders add much-needed convenience to your drive by placing the screen more or less directly in your line of sight, allowing you to better follow navigation, read alerts, and change music tracks. What’s more, they can literally save lives. That might seem like an exaggeration, but the fact is that more than 3,500 deaths per year are attributed to distracted driving. And as we’re all well aware, few things are as distracting as fiddling with our cell phones. In fact, nearly half of US states ban handheld cell phone use while driving.

With all this in mind, we’ve decided to share our picks for the best car phone holders available. To make these selections, we harnessed our collective expertise in testing automotive gadgets, ensuring that you can count on mounting or clasping your phone with confidence.

What to Consider

Vehicle Attachment Type

Car phone holders attach to your vehicle via one of two methods: either by mounting to the dash or a glass surface, or by clasping to a narrow protrusion like an air vent. And, there are pros and cons with each.

In the case of a mount, it usually attaches to any flat surface by suction cup, like our best overall value pick, or adhesive. The benefit to these is that you can typically affix your phone to wherever it's most conveniently seen or reached. The downside is that suction cups tend to lose their grip after a few hours and require adjustment, and adhesives can leave sticky, unattractive residue on your dashboard.

Holders that clip to air vents, on the other hand, leave no residue and rarely require adjustment. The issue with these, however, is that placement may be limited. With some vehicle models, the air vents, for example, might not provide the most convenient location. They can also restrict airflow or access to radio controls.

Rarer are cup-shaped car phone holders that fit securely into any cupholder. While they tend to be very easy to set up and provide a solid fixture, whether or not they’re actually convenient depends entirely on the cupholder placement in your particular vehicle.

Phone Attachment Type

Perhaps the most common phone attachment is a simple clip, which is spring-loaded to safely grip your phone. These are easy to use and tend to be fairly reliable, though the springs can wear out over time. Some clips use a tiny electric motor to automatically grasp your phone, which are highly convenient, but they typically require that you leave them plugged into your dashboard power source at all times.

Also common are MagSafe car mounts that hold your phone via a MagSafe case. These are convenient for attaching and detaching your phone fast, but you may have tweak the setup the next time you get a new iPhone.

Special Features

Beyond the basic gripping and fixture of the phone, keep an eye out for appealing special features, like an adjustable position arm or a built-in charging pad. Also, MagSafe accessories have become popular among iPhone users for integrating wireless charging into the car phone holder. Car-oriented MagSafe products are available in a growing array of styles, attaching via suction cup, magnet, or clasp, and some even provide secondary charging points for wirelessly juicing-up your Apple Watch or headphones.

How We Selected

We chose these car phone holders after considering a wide range of options at various price points to suit different budgets and cover assorted car interior setups. We judged each selected based on overall design—things like grip, size, and adjustability of angle—as well as ease of installation and versatility of the car phone holders' mount. Our recommendations represent our favorites for securely and conveniently affixing your phone.

MagSafe Car Phone Holder

This simple, unpowered MagSafe mount uses permanent magnets to hold your iPhone in place. It also contains graphene material inside, which passively absorbs heat and helps keep your phone cool on the road.

The standard mount is a car vent clip that comes with a pivoting head to adjust screen angle and rotation, and there's an additional mount that uses basic adhesive pads, plus a flexible “foot” that can be bent to fit the curves of your vehicle’s dashboard.

Universal Magnetic Car Phone Holder

This circular car phone holder is as simple, cheap, and as unobtrusive as possible — there are no moving parts to fumble around with. Simply clip the holder to an AC vent, stick the magnetic plate to your phone, and it holds to the flat base. As the holder is always flush with its mounting surface, the screen angle is fixed.

No clamps on the body mean you don’t have to worry about device size or orientation. The one drawback with this method is that bulkier cases may render your phone too heavy for the magnet to hold tightly in place. For those who don’t want the vent clip, an adhesive mount version is also available.

More: The Best Car Vacuums to Keep Your Interiors Looking Spick-and-Span

X-Grip Car Phone Holder

The X-Grip design has four separate rubber-tipped prongs holding the device as securely as possible. These arms rotate along the central head, and the spring tension within allows them to grip each corner tightly.

A suction cup with a twist-lock valve fixes the assembly to a car's windshield or dashboard, and two ball joints allow for full rotation, angle, and position adjustment. It has room for phones from 1.8 to 3.25 inches wide, while the pricier X-Grip Large fits up to 4.5 inches. Considering the price point, you might think this car phone mount offers charging, though unfortunately that isn't the case.

MagSafe Car Phone Holder and Charger

The OtterBox MagSafe charger supplies 15-watt fast charging to your iPhone 12, 13, or 14, plus it features a white illuminated ring for better nighttime visibility. Security comes from a typical vent clip, along with an adjustable ball mount.

This charger is also guaranteed to be compatible with any OtterBox phone case that supports MagSafe, and a limited lifetime warranty is provided with purchase.

A compatible 12-volt adapter also comes in the package, along with a USB-C cable, though it stretches out to 2 meters, which we find excessively long for most vehicles.

Air Vent Car Phone Holder

This Beam Electronics car mount also uses a vent clip, but employs two mechanical grips instead of magnets, with a plastic groove on the bottom for three points of contact. The screen angle is fixed and tilted slightly upward, with a swivel head allowing for portrait and landscape rotation.

The phone grips use a fairly unique ratcheting system with a quick-release button on the bottom of the device. Push the button and they automatically pop out to maximum width, then simply push them back with your phone placed inside.

The clamp can be set anywhere from 1.9 to 3.7 inches wide, which is enough of a range to accommodate most smartphones and cases.

Universal Magnetic Car Phone Holder

The Miracase car phone holder uses a sturdy metal hook to attach to a car’s vent at the rear. Up front is a flat magnetic pad, and in the center is a locking ball-joint mechanism allowing for 360-degree rotation and a nice range of angle adjustment.

The hook grasps the vent more firmly than most mounts, and includes a quick release button for easy removal. The magnetic clasp is also demonstrated to be strong enough to hold the weight of a full-sized iPad, so phones and cases should be easily secured.

Windshield Dash Car Phone Holder

This windshield dash unit combines two spring-loaded fork-like grips with a large suction cup mount. A button valve at the rear pushes air out of the cup and ensure a good seal. The grips attach along the top and bottom of the phone to fit devices up to eight inches lengthwise. (A particularly large phone, such as the iPhone 12 Pro Max in a particularly thick case, may be slightly too big to fit.)

This model also comes with a swivel arm featuring two points of adjustment, allowing for fine tuning of your phone’s position and angle. The entire assembly can also be inverted for low-profile use on top of the dashboard.

CupFone Car Phone Holder

The CupFone has a smart and quirky design that could be a good fit if your car's cup holders are located in the right spot. Setup is a breeze: Just select one of the few sizes of included cup bases, slip it into the cup holder, and slot your phone into the adjustable groove on top. The mount can hold phones and cases up to 3.375 inches wide.

The device sits just above the cupholder, with an optional extension available for extra. While the screen angle is adjustable, the orientation is fixed to a vertical portrait view.

All WeatherTech products are also produced locally in the USA, which does result in this mount being fairly pricey for what you actually get.

Car Charger and Phone Holder

This car phone holder features a robust design along with a solid wireless charger. It’s compatible with most popular phone models, such as the iPhone 8 through 14, Samsung Galaxy S6 onward, and Google Pixel 3 onward, and charges through most basic phone cases. (Be aware, however, that especially thick phone cases can interfere with the wireless capabilities.)

What’s more, the phone clamp opens automatically upon starting your vehicle, then grips your phone automatically when you set it in the holder. It mounts to the vehicle via vent clip or dashboard/windshield suction, and the head provides landscape rotation with a fixed screen angle.

Motorcycle Phone Holder

Here's an outstanding option for any handle barred vehicle, including motorcycles, motorbikes, ATVs, or bicycles. With its rock-solid grip, it ensures that your phone stays in place no matter how much vibration, bouncing, or wind the road throws your way. It’s also large enough to hold virtually any phone (though extra large cases on bigger phone models can be a tight fit), and auto locks around your entire phone to prevent motion in any direction.

The mount attaches to any handlebar between .7-1.34 inches wide, has a military-grade ball joint that won’t break under anything but the most extreme of circumstances, and adjusts to any angle. There’s also a high-speed lock switch that double locks the phone if you hit an especially bumpy surface.

The one downside is that there’s no charger, but if your goal is to install a holder that keeps your phone safe no matter what you’re two-wheeling it through, this does the job nicely.

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