ZDNET’s key findings

• Syncwire MagSafe car phone holder is available on Amazon for $22.
• The accessory is easy to attach and reattach, is sturdy enough to hold the heaviest iPhone, and will not destroy the vent.
• While it doesn’t have built-in wireless charging, for the price I can’t complain.

I test and review a lot of gear, but sometimes I find something by accident that ends up being a game changer. That’s what happened to me recently.

Here’s the story: I had to drive a van on an 850-mile journey across the UK. This journey had to be completed within 24 hours, and given the size of the vehicle and the tight schedule, I couldn’t afford any breakdowns. Unlike a modern car, this van didn’t have Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, so my iPhone had to become my sat nav.

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I needed a phone holder that would securely attach to the van, keep my iPhone within reach, and hold it securely without damaging the dashboard. I usually have a lot of phone holders for the car, but I didn’t have one that fit at the time. So I grabbed a Syncwire MagSafe Car Phone Mount from Amazon and I’m so glad I did.

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A van is a great environment for testing car mounts. The dashboard is sparsely equipped, the whole vehicle rattles and shakes like it’s about to fall apart at any moment, and the windshield is often too far away to use a suction cup mount – you’d need a telescope to see the phone! The Syncwire phone mount ultimately proved to be perfect.

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First off, the specially designed vent clamp has several features that allow you to securely mount your phone without ripping the vent off your vehicle’s dashboard. At the end that connects the mount to your vent, there’s a retractable polymer hook on an arm that can be adjusted in length from 0.3 – 1.3 inches (8 – 30 mm), and the locking knob has an over-tightening protection that prevents you from tightening the clamp enough to break something.

The part that connects to the vents is also equipped with four raised silicone pads to ensure a secure and stable grip without scratching the vent blades. It’s incredibly well designed. But that’s not all.

The section that magnetically attaches to your phone is also very sturdy. The strong neodymium magnets in the holder ring were more than enough to hold my armored iPhone 15 Pro Max on the bumpiest of roads. The holder’s open ring design didn’t block airflow from the vent, so I was able to keep my phone cool in the van even though it was about 27°C outside and there was no air conditioning.

The pivot point between the vent clamp and the MagSafe ring has a 360-degree ball that allows the phone to be adjusted to the perfect viewing angle and is secured in place with a screw clamp. Even after over 800 miles, it hasn’t come loose.

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The clamp is made from heat resistant plastic and aluminium alloy, so it’s strong and durable. It’s tough enough to withstand abuse – which it needed to, as I dropped it on a concrete floor and stepped on it before I could even get it into the van!

Buying advice from ZDNET

I bought the Syncwire MagSafe Car Phone Mount as a cheap on-the-go phone mount—it costs $22—and I wasn’t planning on testing it, but it exceeded all my expectations. Sure, it’s a passive mount with no wireless charging and it doesn’t necessarily look as stylish and snazzy as the ones from Belkin and ESR, but sometimes simplicity is better, and in this case, that’s exactly what I got.