I’ve tried a number of air vent mounts, and to be brutally honest, most disappoint me. There are a few, however, that buck the trend in their design and could possibly become ‘the one’. These take center stage on your vehicle dashboard. The Baseus 10W Qi Fast Wireless Charging iPhone Holder is once such mount. But does it live up to its intriguing design? Let’s find out.
First Impressions
Unlike most air vent mounts (that require you to ‘wedge’ your phone between two claws or slide it into a cradle with a set width) the Baseus takes a more ‘gravitational’ approach to holding onto your smartphone. By using a combination of gears and gravity, you simply rest your smartphone on the bottom arm of the unit and the weight of it will pull the arms in from either side, gently hugging the phone. It’s a very simple yet very effective process that just works.
How the gravity mount works (left). Mount incompatibilities (right)
Holding onto your phone in a simple and clever manner is one thing. But being able to also wirelessly charge at 10W, via its Qi compatible charging backplate, makes the Baseus vent mount an awesome all-in-one solution for your wireless charging phone.
10W Wireless Fast Charger
Everything you need is included in the box, except a 12-volt charging USB socket to plug the charger in to. Using a USB QC3.0 charging socket provides the full 10W (or 7.5W for Apple devices) of charging power to the Baseus Qi charging backplate. Once your smartphone is positioned in the cradle’s arms, the wireless charging simply powers your smartphone.
What’s in the box (left). Qi Wireless Compatible Phones (right)
The business side of cradle is all joined onto a fairly solid crocodile clip, that’s also cleverly designed. I’ve had some poor air vent mounts in the past with pretty terrible clips. Baseus has spent some time in designing some clever features to it clip that helps improve the mount’s grip onto the air vent blades.
First is the surface area that the crocodile jaws can clamp onto is bigger. This means better grip and less side-to-side movement over its competitors. In addition to this is a tiny tooth-like edge on one end of its jaws. This grips onto the vent blade and prevent the clip from falling off entirely. All of these tiny extras and a more powerful spring really help to produce a more solid attachment to the air vent blades.
With its clip and rotating ball joint, the Baseus sits around 4cm (1.5-inches) away from the air vent. Unlike some more flush mounted air vent mounts, this improves air flow and allows the vent it’s mounted on to continue to work in some fashion.
Because of this distance, and lack of support found in mounts like the Mountek, vibration and general motion can slowly move the mount. This unfortunately means you have to make continuous adjustments during each car journey. The motion of positioning my smartphone onto the candle can also alter its position and adjusting the mount backwards after mounting is a regular occurrence.
Compatibility
It is worth mentioning there will are some compatibility limitations with this mount. This mount will not work in your vehicle if your vehicle has either: vertical air vent blades, horizontal blades without left/right movement or fancy vents like those found in Mercedes. The mount will work with smartphone displays between 4 and 6.5-inches, and it may not wirelessly charge your phone if it is in a case thicker than 4mm. It charges my iPhone X through its official Apple leather case without any problem.
Available colours – Black, White and Red
The Baseus Fast Wireless Charging Phone Holder retails for $23.99 (£18.29) from Lulu Look, which I think is pretty reasonable for what you’re getting here. There are three colours to choose from: all black, white (black and silver), and a striking black and red colour combo.
Let’s Wrap Up
Overall, the Baseus 10W Qi Fast Wireless Charging iPhone Holder is a solid air vent mount, that not only offers a fairly solid mounting solution over the its more simplified solutions of its competitors, but it also features upto 10W Qi wireless charging too. With its build quality, it’s clever design features, and all what I have mentioned above, I would certainly recommend this mount. If you’re looking for a wireless air vent mount that does more than simply hold onto your smartphone, and you prefer this over a magnetised solution of air vent mount, then I would add this Baseus air vent mount to your shopping list.
And yes, it has become ‘the one’ on my centre console.
