Mobility Digest Review: Type-S Universal Air Vent Holder

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any reviews here, just really busy, but as of now I’ve got four things coming up for you. I’m going to start off with a universal air vent cell phone holder aptly named the Type-S Universal Air Vent Holder. Very original name isn’t it?! The products isn’t bad, but it’s not the greatest either. I’m using it with my Samsung Galaxy S Captivate in my 2009 Subaru Forester, so read on to see what I learned about it.

Author: Kristofer Brozio

Vendor: Mobile Fun

Price: £12.74  / $19.95

Overall Rating: 3/5

Type-S Universal Air Vent Holder
Product Reference: 24801

Keep your phone in full view whilst staying legal on the roads.

The universal air vent holder is designed to fit every phone on the market and simply attaches to your air vent to give you not only a perfect view of your phone but a perfect view of the road ahead of you as well.

Why Buy?
* Fits to air vents so doesn’t clutter the dashboard or obscure the view through the windscreen
* 360 degree swivel allows portrait and landscape orientation, so great for phone GPS apps
* The spring loaded grips make it secure yet easy to load or retrieve the phone from the device
* Can work with case still on so no need to remove
* High Quality finish means it doesn’t look out of place in modern car interiors

The holder features 360 degree swivel clips which clip to your air vent allow you to view phones in both landscape and portrait angles which is perfect if you’re using your phone as a sat nav or just to keep your phone in place whilst driving. The holder grips your phone using 2 spring loaded clips which are designed to hold your phone tightly so it holds the handset securely whilst your driving, even around sharp bends. The spring loaded clips also make it easy to insert your phone into the holder and to also remove it once you’ve finished driving. It also has feet at the bottom which are designed to support your phone throughout your journey. The back of the holder also has a soft foam finish so your phone won’t get scratched.

The air vent holder is small and discreet and fits in your air vent with the minimum of fuss. The small design means that it doesn’t clutter up the dashboard with an unsightly holder or block your view of the windscreen. It features 2 separate air vent holders, which can be removed, so that it provides a firm grip on the air vent to ensure that the holder won’t fall off the air vent whilst you are driving.

The holders arms expand to 71mm allowing it to hold even the largest of phones on the market and each arm features rollers on them making it easy to place your phone in the holder no matter what the size. The small and discreet design is made with a high quality graphite finish so it doesn’t look out of place with any car, even modern car interiors.

Check out Mobile Fun for more Galaxy S car holders.

What’s in the Box?

The Type-S comes in everyone’s favorite packaging, the sealed plastic clamshell style. Luckily though I’ve got an OpenIt! that comes in very handy for things like this.

Inside you’ll find essentially three parts, the holder and two clips, so it needs to be assembled.

The back panel is nicely padded, and the arms have rubber pads and rollers on them. The arms also expand fairly far so they should accommodate most every phone. The arms are spring loaded and very tight.

Here’s a few views before it’s assembled. The back rectangular plate is where the clips go and it turns around 360 degrees.

Then here it is assembled:

Impressions / Review:

Ok so as I mentioned I’ve got a Samsung Galaxy S Captivate and I have it in an Otterbox Commuter Series Case. My car is a 2009 Subaru Forester so the vents are sort of low, below the radio, but they work well for something like this. Attaching it to the vent is easy, it just clips in place.

Then here is my phone in it:

Ok, so I got a good chance to test this I went to another state actually a nice approximate 150 mile drive round trip.

The fist thing I found is that the Type-S holder doesn’t stay in the position you put it, if you tilt it up it just falls back down. Kind of worthless to me really. If my vents would have been higher up in the car it might have worked out better for me.

The Type-S is supposed to hold large phones, up to 71mm in width. The Captivate is 63.5mm in width without the case and the case only adds about 5mm in width so it’s under the 71mm limit. The Otterbox case doesn’t add that much bulk, which is why I like it but putting it in the Type-S holder I found that it’s very tight. I was thinking that tight was good, but I found that tight just makes the phone pop out and fall on the floor. I hit a nice bump and out popped my phone, not once, but several times. Luckily my phone is protected by the case. Needless to say it’s not a good thing when your phone falls to the floor more than once from something that is supposed to hold it in place.

So I don’t care for this, and I actually have another one that I’ll be reviewing next so I went to remove it and found that it’s very hard to get off the vent. You’ve got to twist and turn all different ways to get it off the vent and really use force.

Conclusion:

So in conclusion here I ‘m not too happy with this holder, it is nicely made but my phone kept falling out so that’s certainly not a good thing at all.

If you’ve got a smaller phone that this might work for you, but a larger phone just isn’t going to work well.

 

Pros:
+Simple and fairly easy to use
+Seems well made
+Stays in vent very well
+Padded to protect phone

Cons:
-Can’t fit large phones that good 
-My phone kept popping out and falling on floor
-Can be difficult to get phone in
-Very hard to remove from vent