Cygnett’s take on a car screen mount for your smartphone is quite sticky, but not in the brown twig sense.
Cygnett StickMount Holder: On the plus side
No matter where I go, pretty much every single day I’ll see someone driving a car while talking or texting on their smartphone. It’s not that I own binoculars and go out seeking such voyeuristic thrills; it’s simply that when they’ve adopted that characteristic head tilt that indicates they’re nestling a smartphone on their shoulders. I suppose some of them could have a massive inner ear imbalance, but that seems less likely than simple impatience to check messages or take a call.
This is a bad thing, because it’s a massive distraction from driving, and therefore quite a big safety issue. Even if you don’t think that way (and I’m sorry to say this, BUT YOU’RE AN IDIOT), there’s the matter of the quite serious fines that’ll quickly come your way for using your mobile that way.
Comparatively speaking, a screen mount for your phone is much cheaper and much safer, as well as opening up possibilities for in-car GPS use within the existing legal frameworks for such things.
In most respects, Cygnett’s StickMount Holder is an ordinary screen mount; a suction disc with a clamp wheel that folds into the holster part. The holster, however, lives up to its stickmount nomenclature, not because it’s made of trees, but because it’s made of a sticky resin that the phone attaches to. You push it onto the resin to attach, and pull off with some force to remove it from the resin. Simple — and mostly effective stuff.
Cygnett StickMount Holder: On the minus side
There are some catches. Over the course of a couple of week’s testing, I’ve noticed that the suction wheel is sometimes reluctant to actually grip to a car windscreen. You’ll always know if that’s the case, because it’ll drop back down into your hand, but it’s a little annoying to fight it when it doesn’t want to take. It’s a bad idea to leave any car mount on your windscreen on a permanent basis; while GPS units and the like are much cheaper than they used to be, it’s an open sign that you might store valuables in your car, and attracting thieves is never wise.
Then there’s the resin. Over time it attracts in-car fluff and muck, losing its early sheen quickly. I don’t smoke (and you shouldn’t), but I can only imagine that in a smoker’s car, it would quickly become quite filthy.
Adhesion level varied depending on which smartphone I was using. An iPhone 5, Motorola RAZR HD, LG Optimus G, Samsung Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note II all attached and stayed put during drives, but the same wasn’t true for the Nokia Lumia 925, which had an alarming tendency to simply detach mid-drive. I’m not sure if it’s the curvature of the Lumia 925’s back, or the material it’s made from, but it and the Cygnett did not get on well.
Cygnett StickMount Holder: Pricing
The Cygnett StickMount Holder has an RRP of $19.95.
Cygnett StickMount Holder: Alex’s Verdict
You absolutely should have an in-car mount if you’re going to use your phone in-car in any real way. That’s common sense. But should you have the Cygnett StickMount Holder?
It’s possible to pick up simple side-holding screen mounts for a little less money, and while they don’t have the clean simplicity of the Cygnett StickMount Holder’s resin-based solution, they’re also not as prone to picking up dust, or dropping phones. It’s an interesting idea, and not a terrible one, but at the same time it’s essentially fixing a problem that wasn’t in fact broken.