5 Of The Best Phone Holders For Your Car In 2024
What makes a car phone holder good?
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There are so many different phone mounts for cars, all claiming to be the best solution for taking your mobile phone on the road, but almost all are cursed by one fatal flaw or another. Knowing what you actually need from a mount is a great way to cut through the noise. Quick convenience is paramount, so let's start there. At the end of the day, you need quick access to your device from a phone mount, ideally without needing to take your eyes off the road.
Of course, you should never interact with your phone unless your vehicle is stopped. But in the cases it can't be avoided, having to fiddle around while you drive could be the distraction that turns a trip to the grocery store into the worst — or last — moment of your life. That means you need a mount that can be placed somewhere easy to reach. A mount should also reliably secure your phone because another great way to cause an accident is having your phone flung into your face as you slam the brakes. At the same time, it should be easy to mount and dismount your phone.
After the safety basics come the nice-to-haves, including features like built-in wireless charging, adjustability, or cable organization. While none of these make or break a mount, the best car mounts will have one or more features beyond the essentials. Of course, durability and price are factors since it's better to spend a small amount of money once than multiple amounts of money multiple times. Based on personal testing and user reviews, let's dive into some of the best phone holders for your car in 2024. There will be a more in-depth explanation of our methodology at the end of the article.
iOttie Easy One Touch 6
The iOttie Easy One Touch 6 is by far the best-selling car phone mount on Amazon with the most positive ratings, and its previous generation, the Easy One Touch 5, tops the same metrics over at Best Buy, which does not appear to stock the 6. It's easy to see why so many people have picked it up. The Easy One Touch 6 covers all the basics of a good phone mount. It uses a suction cup on an adhesive platform to mount on a dashboard, and it has a telescoping boom arm that helps bring your phone closer to your hand for easy use while driving.
It uses a clamp-style mechanism to hold a phone, which may be a better option than magnetic attachments when it comes to securing the phone from bumpy drives. The "one touch" in question refers to a mechanism that engages the clamps onto the phone when pressed against the back of the dock, and an adjustable shelf on the bottom ensures the phone won't slide vertically. The iOttie Easy One Touch 6 costs $29.95 on the company's website but is currently unavailable on Amazon, unfortunately.
The most common complaint, based on reviews, is that the Easy One Touch 6 has some quality issues. The majority of customers appear satisfied, but a few reported that their units broke after about a month. Additionally, the rigid design of the boom arm means that you'll need to make sure it's the right fit for your vehicle. Still, it earns a spot at the top of this list for covering all the basics at a low price. If that's what you're after, look no further.
Scosche StuckUp Qi
Next up, the Scosche StuckUp Qi is a bit of an upgrade pick. This is the car mount I personally use, and although others have come across my desk, none compel me to permanently switch from StuckUp's simple, effective design. It uses a suction cup on an adhesive base plate to attach either to a dashboard or windshield, meaning it can be mounted from above or below, and it has a fully flexible bendy arm that I like much better than the rigid boom arms found on other mounts for positioning my phone exactly where I want it. It also allows for the phone to be mounted sideways if you prefer a landscape view for your maps app.
The actual phone-holding part of the mount is thoughtfully designed, too. The clamping arms on each side are rubberized where they come in contact with the phone, preventing damage to the phone and keeping it better secured. The adjustable shelf below, which holds the bottom of the phone, has a small lip and rubber to prevent the phone from slipping forward. The backplate doubles as a 10W Qi wireless charger, but there's also cable management for wired charging, which I prefer since I can take full advantage of my phone's fast charging that way.
Still, when a friend needs a quick charge, and I don't have a cable that matches their phone, I can simply let them use the Qi plate. Unmounting my phone from the StuckUp is simple: just press the button on the back to release the ratchet lock on the clamps. From multi-state road trips to everyday commutes, the Scosche StuckUp Qi has lasted for years and still works like new. For a penny shy of $40, it's well worth the cost.
Miracase Adjustable Long Neck Car Cup Holder
While driving, it's best to have your phone mounted in a spot where it can easily be seen without moving your head to minimize the time you're looking at the screen instead of the road. However, not all car designs accommodate a dash or windshield-mounted phone mount. What almost every car does have, however, is a cup holder, and that's where the Miracase Adjustable Long Neck Car Cup Holder comes in.
What's clever about the Miracase cup holder compared to other cup holder style phone mounts is its expanding base, which features three protruding feet with plenty of silicon padding that can be expanded to make it fit snugly in any size cup holder. Other similar mounts have a terribly unsafe habit of toppling over during a drive, but I can't imagine that happening with the Miracase. The base stayed sturdily in my cup holder on the drive I took to test it, and although there was some slight wobbling from the stem, it wasn't enough to make the phone's display unreadable. Also welcome is the extra long neck that can extend nearly a foot upwards from the base to bring the phone much closer to eye level than other cup holder mounts.
You may be wondering why I'm recommending the Miracase instead of a vent clip mount. Vent clips block your air vent, which means you're blowing hot air over your phone in the winter and missing out on cool air in the summer. Plus, they break and take out part of your louvers when they do. Save yourself the headache and get this Miracase cup mount instead.
iOttie iTap Magnetic 2
Next up, the iOttie iTap Magnetic 2 is a magnet-based phone mount. It works by attaching one piece of metal to your phone, which clips to a strong magnet atop the base of the unit. For sheer convenience, the iTap Magnetic 2 is unparalleled, which is why my dad loves this thing. There's no fiddling with clamps to lock it in place or reaching around to find a release button when you exit your vehicle. You simply slap it into place and pull it away.
One major advantage of this mount is that it allows you to remove the phone at a moment's notice. If I want to pay with NFC at a drive-thru, I just grab the phone. Someone in the backseat wants to change up the Spotify playlist? Just hand it back without needing to take your eyes off the road. When you don't need it, the iTap Magnetic 2's strong magnets should keep your phone from flying away when you hit a bump. But be aware that how secure it is may depend on how thick your phone case is.
However, the iTap Magnetic 2 has a couple of quirks that can't be avoided thanks to its design, which bumps it further down this list. First, you need to have a case on your phone or stick an ugly piece of metal to the back of your device. I certainly wouldn't blemish my smartphone like that, and I keep my phone nude often enough to dislike the case magnet, too. Additionally, the metal piece that goes on the phone blocks the wireless charging coil hidden underneath the back panel of most modern smartphones, and although iOttie offers smaller pieces to avoid this issue, those who enjoy Qi or MagSafe charging should beware.
Samsung Wireless Car Charger
If you're the owner of a large foldable phone like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5, or if you like to use your tablet for GPS navigation, the other phone mounts on this list likely won't accommodate the dimensions of your device. Thankfully, the Samsung Wireless Car Charger is built to accommodate foldables and small tablets, which makes it the best option for owners of those devices who want to keep them close at hand in the car.
Samsung has included some special features for its smartphone mount, with the coolest addition being automatic clamps that open up when a phone is brought near and tighten when it's placed inside the dock. The surface of the dock against which the back of the phone rests is also a 9W Qi wireless charging pad. Extracting your device is as simple as pressing a button on the side of the mount to unclamp the clamps.
The Samsung Wireless Car Charger can accommodate a regular-sized phone in portrait or landscape mode, as well as foldable or small tablets. Of course, as a Samsung product, it works best with a Samsung phone. It worked well with my Galaxy S23 Ultra, but I was also able to find people using it seamlessly with an iPhone.
The most disappointing thing about the Samsung Wireless Car Charger is that it only comes with an air vent mount, which, as mentioned earlier, is my least favorite attachment style. Thankfully, the vent clip has feet that extend outward to give extra support, which should lower the chances of your vent breaking. However, it also uses a standard ball and socket system, so you can use the dash or windshield mount from another product with it if you want.
Methodology
Each car phone mount on this list was selected either based on the writer's personal, hands-on product testing or an aggregate of reviews from marketplaces around the web in conjunction with the writer's knowledge of the product category. Units tested in person were mounted in a 2015 Subaru Crosstrek XV. Your results may vary based on the condition of the product purchased and the model of vehicle intended for product use.