If your car doesn’t have CarPlayand you want a safe and convenient way to use your iPhone for navigation, we think the Belkin Magnetic Wireless Car Charger gets a lot right. It is small, discrete and takes up very little space while offering an incredibly convenient way to charge your iPhone and use it for navigation. The vent mount is a near-universal standard among most vehicles, and the included USB-C to USB-A cable, plus a 12V adapter, gives two options for plugging it in right out of the box. There’s every chance you’ve been in at least one minicab where part of the windscreen is covered by a wall of phones. That’s not an example to follow. We choose the most popular car phone holders sold at UK retailers and test each in different cars and with iPhone and Samsung devices. We buy all the products we test. Each car phone holder is rated on the following: ESR’s lightweight mount and charger is a top option for recent iPhones, giving you a Magsafe mount that fits with ease into a vent, then provides secure 18W wireless QI charging via a USB-C cable connected to your car’s USB outlet. The ball joint on the vent mount means it works with both horizontal and vertical vents, while a support arm holds the central square pad steady no matter how rough the road. ESR also sells a dashboard version, if you’d rather have it fitted there. You can also get suction grips and cradles that attach directly to your dashboard, although this won’t work if it has a textured surface. Another possibility is to connect the holder to your car stereo.

Certain phone mounts have clips or arms that hold the phone securely: you simply slide the device into place when you get into the car and remove it when you leave. Stability We take each in-car phone holder out on a bumpy driving test to see how stable it remains and whether the angle or position of the phone changes significantly. Adjustability We test how easy or fiddly it is to adjust the car phone holders to a comfortable position to view your mobile.One of the most popular options is a clip that attaches to your air-conditioning vent. These are ideal for lighter smartphones, but the grip might not be firm enough to hold heavier devices and it also obstructs the airflow. A final option to explore is a bespoke mount. Swedish firm Brodit make custom mounting units for each model of car to create a permanent mount for your phone. Attaching your phone to the mount The best in-car phone holders you can buy in 2023 1. Halfords Magnetic Windscreen Mount: Best windscreen mount Ease of use Our testers rate each car phone mount on how easy it is to put together, attach a phone and attach it to a car.

The ball joint on the vent mount gives you a wider range of tilt and swivel, so you can keep the phone in view, and – with a little practice – you can insert and remove it single-handed, with the arms releasing as you pull the phone vertically out of its cradle. It can only hold the phone in portrait mode, but it’s one affordable, sturdy mount. Where you put your car phone holder depends very much on the type you’re using. There are three main car attachment types and two phone attachment types to choose between. Here's a comparison of them, which should help with such questions as: are magnetic car phone holders good? Where is the best place to put the phone holder on a car windscreen?You may be wondering: are magnetic holders safe? Although we can't vouch for all of them, the ones we tested had a strong grip and won't damage the internal components of your smartphone. While there’s no additional support beyond the glossy Magsafe plate, it keeps a tenacious grip on compatible iPhones, and we couldn’t fault it during testing – provided the phone wasn’t in a silicon case. Our test phone’s case weakened the grip somewhat; but ESR sells its own Magsafe cases, which won’t suffer the same problem. This is a smart compact holder and charger that will do your iPhone proud. We test these phone holders in the real world environment, and, when possible, use them with different phones.