Best car phone mounts in 2024 | Tom's Guide

Turn your phone into a driving-friendly tool with these mounts

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The best car phone mounts are the perfect tool for drivers, especially if your car doesn't have a screen of its own. A solid mount lets you turn your phone into a useful driving tool, keeping it on hand for when you need it — but in a way that doesn't distract you from the road ahead. The problem you might face is picking the right mount for your car, because there's a lot of choice out there.

Personally we're big fans of the TopGo cup holder phone mount. It's more or less impossible to find a car without a cupholder these days, and the flexible arm means you have a lot more freedom in positioning your phone compared to vent or dash-mounted options. Cars with neglected CD players could also benefit from iOttie's Easy One Touch 4 CD Slot Mount, which clips onto the CD player slot to make what would be wasted space more productive. Those who prefer a simple and minimalist design should opt for something like the Belkin Car Vent Mount, which clips onto your phone when needed but otherwise blends into the rest of your dashboard.

But that's only scratching the surface of the number of car phone mounts on sale. Luckily for you we've done some testing with a bunch of of them to help you figure out the good from the bad. Here are the best car phone mounts you can buy right now.

Here are the best car phone mounts you can buy right now, based on our own testing. You can scroll down the page to find more in-depth information about each model and what exactly makes them so great.

best overall

Best car phone mount overall

Every car has a cup holder, and if yours isn't full of cups you can put it to good use holding up your phone. The neck is long enough to keep it in view, and sturdy enough to keep it all stable — without blocking any part of the view from the windshield.

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best for older cars

Best car phone mount for older cars

Does your car have a CD player going unused because, well, you play everything from your phone instead? Lucky for you this car phone mount can give it a new lease on life, holding your phone in place while you drive. Just push the mount in, pop in a phone and you're good to go.

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best mount for vents

Best car phone mount for vents

Sometimes the simple option is the best, and Belkin's Car Vent mount is a great example of that. You've got a no frills, minimalist design that holds your phone in place without taking up any dashboard space. There's little more you could ask for.

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Best suction cup car phone mount

If you want an absurdly strong suction cup, attached to an extendable arm with a quick-release mount, this is the mount for you. That means you can place it just about anywhere in your car, and take your phone out with a single hand.

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best magsafe

Best car phone mount for MagSafe

Keep your iPhone locked in place and ditch the wires with this MagSafe compliant mount from SandMarc. It may only charge at 7.5W, but it's easy to install, has a discreet cable tidy, and has the aesthetic appeal to match your shiny Apple phone.

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best magnetic mount

Best magnetic car phone mount

If you need something small and discreet, then you can't go wrong with YOSH's magnetic air vent mount. You do need to stick a magnet on the back of your phone, but if you want something out of the way and virtually invisible then this is the perfect mount for you.

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Our expert review:

Using a cup holder isn’t the most obvious place to keep your phone mount, but it works surprisingly well. Thanks to its long neck and sturdy construction, we found this holder will hold your phone high enough that it's easily visible while also keeping it out of your field of view. In our testing we found that the holder can jiggle around a little when on bumpy roads, but that’s difficult to avoid given the way this thing works.

The benefits of putting your phone holder into a cup holder are obvious: You don’t lose an air vent or have to deal with suction cups, and damn near every car has cup holders as standard. You’ll lose a place for your skinny latte of course, but that’s the price you pay for not being too hot or cold or worrying that your phone will fall at any moment.

Read the full TopGo Cup Holder Phone mount review

Our expert review:

We’ve tested a lot of phone holders and the iOttie Easy One Touch 4 CD Slot Mount is one of our favorites for a simple reason — it takes that CD player that you likely never use and gives it a new lease on life. During our testing we found that installation of the Easy One Touch 4 mount is simple, and the holder almost completely disappears when not in use.

Once set up, your phone isn’t going anywhere and the chances are good that your CD slot will be high enough that your screen is never more than a quick glance away. If you don’t use your CD player — who does? — you can leave the mount installed and you won’t even notice it’s there. Magic.

Read the full iOttie Easy One Touch 4 CD Slot Mount review

Our expert review:

Belkin's imaginatively-named Car Vent Mount isn’t the cheapest option around, but it does have something most of its competitors don’t: cable management. Belkin included an area for you to keep your charging cable so it doesn’t fly around your car when you aren’t using it, and we found it to be surprisingly effective. There were no more stray cables blocking all those important buttons in our car

Beyond the cable management component, there isn’t an awful lot to the Belkin Car Vent Mount and that isn’t a bad thing at all. What it does, it does well and that’s to hold a phone steady while you drive.

Read the full Belkin Car Vent Mount review

Our expert review:

The iOttie Easy One Touch 5 instils confidence in a way few other mounts do. That’s all thanks to its large suction cup that we found to be absurdly strong. Once mounted, an extendable arm means you should be able to put your phone where you want it, bringing it within reach. You can’t change the angle of that arm, so you’ll need to have the whole thing pointing in the right direction.

Like some of the best mounts, this one holds your phone rock steady when you’re driving around, and putting the device into the holder is a simple one-handed affair. People with huge phones should be good to go thanks to the three-point mounting system that can be moved at will.

Read the full iOttie Easy One Touch 5 review

Our expert review:

If charging your iPhone while on the move is your game, the Sandmarc Active Car Mount is the place to look first. This holder is only compatible with Apple’s more recent iPhones, thanks to its use of MagSafe-compatible mount means it’s one of the better-looking holders we tested.

In terms of charging, the Sandmarc holder is limited to 7.5W, so it isn’t true MagSafe as such. The magnets are super strong, however, and I didn’t have any issues in terms of movement during testing.

Read the full Sandmarc Active Phone Mount review

Our expert review:

If the absolute smallest holder you can find is all you need, the YOSHI magnetic mount is for you. As small as a coin, this little thing is surprisingly powerful thanks to the magic of magnets. It’s one of the cheapest options we came across too. Sometimes cheap and cheerful is all you need and this YOSH holder is the epitome of that.

The only potential issue with this holder is the fact you need to affix a disc to the back of your phone — something for the magnets to attach to, It can make the back of your phone look a little untidy, but the mount itself is more than good enough at its job to make that a minor issue. Despite being so small, an iPhone 12 Pro was kept firmly in place by the grip of the magnets — which is seriously impressive.

Read the full Yosh Magnetic Car Phone Mount review

Our expert review:

If you’re someone who uses a PopSocket to make their huge phone less unwieldy, putting it into a car phone holder can be an issue. As you might expect, the PopSockets people have an answer to that in the form of the PopMount 2 Car Dash holder.

The PopSockets PopMount 2 Car Dash holder has a strong suction cup that should do the trick on most dashboards. The angle of the phone can also be adjusted, and it’s a relatively good-looking bit of kit even when there’s no phone in it — plus its design means it can be folded away when not in use. If you use a PopSocket, this is the one for you.

Read the full Popsockets Popmount 2 review

What you need in a car phone mount all depends on what kind of car you have. In its most basic form a phone mounts needs to be able to hold your phone upright, and in a position that means it won't be moving around on even the bumpiest of roads. Beyond that, you also need the screen to be visible without blocking your view of the road ahead.

For all this you need to be able to find a mount that comfortably fits somewhere on your dashboard. There's a lot of choice here, and there are phone mounts capable of fitting in places you never dreamed could be used to store a smartphone. At their most basic you're looking at a mount that fits in an air vent, or a suction cup that can be stuck to the windshield or dash. But there are also mounts that can be fitted into cup holders, tape decks and even CD players. Assuming you have the space, that is.

You’ll also need to take your phone’s unique qualities into account, like if it has MagSafe or you need something that can accommodate a PopSocket or similar stand. This roundup covers all bases and there should be an option for everyone right here.

Each car phone mount we've reviewed has gone through the same testing regimen, in the same car and (where possible) using the same iPhone. The process begins by making sure the holder can find a solid grip on whichever part of the car it's supposed to attach to — be it the windscreen, air vent, or something else.

It's crucial that this positioning not blocking the drivers' view of the road ahead, but also that the driver can see the phone screen at a glance. Otherwise the mount is failing at its primary goal.

From there it's a case of seeing just how easily a phone can be inserted and removed from the mount. This also involved checking how well any moving parts work, and whether any additional features can do their jobs correctly. This is especially important for mounts that support charging — wireless or otherwise.

Then it all comes down to the design and how conspicuous those mounts are when not in use. A car phone mount may not be essential on a quick local trip, and it's important to know if it'll be particularly cumbersome or whether it can practically disappear.

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Tom is the Tom's Guide's UK Phones Editor, tackling the latest smartphone news and vocally expressing his opinions about upcoming features or changes. It's long way from his days as editor of Gizmodo UK, when pretty much everything was on the table. He’s usually found trying to squeeze another giant Lego set onto the shelf, draining very large cups of coffee, or complaining about how terrible his Smart TV is.

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