GETTING to your destination is a breeze with the bestcar phone holder at your side. Whether attached to a vent or your windscreen, the right phone mount will ensure your focus remains firmly on the road.
As pairing phones with cars becomes more common, so too are penalties for misusing them behind the wheel. Car phone holders eliminate the worry, allowing you to easily follow a sat nav or take calls, hands-free.
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Voice assistants like Siri and Google mean controlling what you do on your phone while behind the wheel is far safer.
And as long as you stay hands-free, you're not breaking the law as it currently stands.
Mounting your mobile handset is the key to being safe on the road while using a sat nav or taking calls –and you can choose from windscreen, vent, or dash-mounted holders.
Some holders clip, others use magnets or suction mounts to keep your mobile firmly in place while on the move.
What suits you best depends on what kind of handset size you have - whether you’re happy to stick a magnet to the back of the phone or casing and what shape air vents your car has.
We've rounded up a selection of the best car phone holders available to buy now for a range of budgets.
Exshow Windshield Car Phone Holder
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- Exshow Windshield Car Phone Holder, £16.99 from Amazon - buy here
This Exshow Car Mount is a 30cm flexible arm that mounts to both the windscreen of your car with a suction cup, and to the dash with a sticker, to offer the ultimate sturdy support. This means that unlike similar designs, your phone doesn't bounce around as you drive.
The phone holder itself clutches your handset firmly between its side arms and has a quick release button at the back, so it can be operated with one hand.
Super easy to use, it is no surprise this phone holder has earned so many glowing reviews, with many shoppers commenting on the holder's solid support for a phone and its ease of installation and use.
As the holder is highly adjustable, it's compatible with the vast majority of phones. All phones are initially cradled portrait, but can be manually moved to landscape when your navigation app initiates.
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Arteck Car Mount
- Arteck Car Mount, £7.64 from Amazon - buy here
This stylish dash- or windscreen-mounted car phone holder also comes in a discreet black, but we rather like this striking red version.
It attaches to the interior of your car with a sticky gel pad, which can be mounted in a variety of locations.
It has padded jaws that range in width from 5.5cm to 9cm, meaning it can hold a huge variety of phone models, and thesturdy design features a ball joint to adjust orientation.
Racking up over 9,000 five-star global ratings, this car mount is a smash hit with shoppers, who rave about its sturdiness, ease of use and unbelievable price.
Yosh Car Phone Holder
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- Yosh Car Phone Holder, £7.99 from Amazon - buy here
This affordable model is mounted to the vent in your car with powerful magnets, which are designed to keep your device in place and prevent movement during travel.
The magnets are so strong they can even hold a tablet — if you were desperate to imitate Tesla’s fancy 17 inch screen.
The magnets offer versatility in landscape or portrait configuration and when changing between cars — provided the vehicles can accommodate the vent mount — the process is very much snap-on, snap-off.
It also comes at good price and is very durable according to the thousands of glowing reviews on Amazon that sing this phone holder's praises.
Top tip — you can hide the magnet on your handset by sticking it to the inside of your case, rather than on the outside.
Scosche Wireless Charging Magnetic Mount
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- Scosche Wireless Charging Magnetic Mount, £50 from Halfords - buy here
Scosche is a top brand when it comes to phone mounts. The brand has an excellent range that use magnets to attach phones to their holders and the rare-earth magnets are extremely effective at keeping your phone in place solidly.
This mount is sleek and stylish-looking and it can be secured to your windscreen or dash with a reusable StickGrip strong hold suction cup base.
While this particular mount is a pricey option, it also wirelessly charges your handset, so if your device has Qi capability, it'll get your battery back in the green in no time.
Belkin Car Vent Mount
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- Belkin Car Vent Mount, £19.99 from Amazon - buy here
This durable vent-mounted phone holder from Belkin has jaws with grippy rubber cushions to hold a broad range of handset sizes, accommodating phones up to 5.5 inches, even when in a thick phone case.
It can be seamlessly rotated to a portrait or landscape view and a handy cable holder at the backhelps keep the phone charged when needed and the cable out of the way when not.
The slim design of this phone holder works with most car vents and users report on its pleasingly sleek design, which integrates discretely into the dash overall.
Wuteku Car Phone Holder
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- Wuteku Car Phone Holder, £12.99 from Amazon - buy here
This stylish car phone holder rates highly amongst Uber drivers — a fair benchmark given their reliance on a well-mounted mobile device.
Wuteku has designed this mini silver ball, which mounts to the dash neatly and then attaches to the handset, with a powerful ultra-slim magnet that can be hidden on the inside of a protective phone case.
But this phone holder might not suit some, depending on the design of your car and how high the dash sits.
Wuteku have reported counterfeit versions hitting the market due to its massive popularity, so be sure to click our link to buy the genuine article, and get down with the ride-share crowd.
Halfords One Touch Universal Car Mount Holder
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- Halfords One Touch Universal Car Mount Holder, £8 from Halfords - buy here
A windscreen-mounted option from Halfords at a bargain price – this One Touch Universal Car Mount Holder uses a suction cup to attach to the windscreen then secures in place by locking the clips to create a vacuum.
Shoppers report the mount is held in place extremely tightly, but if the extra-large suction does begin to lose its effectiveness, all it needs is a rinse in warm water.
The holder can rotate 360 degrees and accommodate devices up to three inches wide, so it's not so good if you have a giant handset.
Belkin Car Cup Mount
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- Belkin Car Cup Mount, £35.99 from Amazon - buy here
If you can't sacrifice the space on your windscreen or dashboard, this expandable model fits into a cup holder. Best of all, it's portable and unobtrusive to your view of the road.
While most car phone mounts fit somewhere on your windscreen or dashboard with a sticker or suction pad, you can ditch the sticky stuff and use your cup holder instead with this clever holder.
This Belkin beauty fits into the space your coffee cup normally lives and secures your phone using a clip for maximum stability.
Where do you put a phone holder in your car?
Different car phone holders feature different attachment systems: some can be securely stuck to the windscreen or dashboard, while others are fixed to the air vents and some, like this Belkin Car Cup Mount, can even sit into the cup holder.
It’s also worth bearing in mind the position of your USB charging port or adaptor, so you can charge your phone while you drive.
Do I need wireless charging in my car phone holder?
The answer to this questions depends on whether your phone is even enabled for wireless charging.
If it is, a mount that charges at the same time as you drive is a really useful feature – after all, if your battery is low, who really wants to be untangling wires when you're about to hit the road?
While they are significantly more expensive than non-charging holders, a wireless charging phone mount means you can pop your phone in place and get on the go almost instantly. So you can forget about ever being stuck in the middle of nowhere with a dead phone again.
This Scosche Wireless Charging Magnetic Mount is a fantastic buy that's scored good reviews for its sturdy hold.
How to set up a car phone holder
How you set up your car phone holder will depend on which type you purchased.
It will likely come with instructions, that should be easy to follow, with many able to be clipped to an air vent or the dash, or suctioned on to a the windscreen.
Are car phone holders legal?
Since 2003, it’s been illegal to handle a phone while driving — but a car phone holder can help you use your phone legally in some instances.
It is illegal to use your mobile phone while driving unless you have hands-free access to the phone - the holder can provide this as long as you're using the device in a hands-free capacity, such as by voice command.
Are magnetic car mounts safe for phones?
You'd struggle to find anyone who would claim that the magnets in a phone mount could damage your phone.
According to sources around the web, the magnets in a mount aren't strong enough to do any damage to the internal components of your phone.