I’m terrible with the whole car mount / phone holder situation. I get to my car, open the door, then throw my wallet and phone onto the passenger seat. If the phone is lucky, it’ll be plugged in and will perhaps reach the destination without sliding off the seat and into some fluff-ridden slot down the side of the door somewhere.
If you do have a phone holder for your car, you’ll waste precious seconds actually “setting up” for your journey – plugging in the phone, sorting the cabling out so that it’s not all over your gearstick and handbrake – before finally getting it correctly situated in the holder.
This is the EasGear Qi Wireless Charger, which actually describes itself as the “C1 Vehicular Wireless Charging Transmitter”. It’s available to buy for $24.99 on Amazon. It features an easy and quick phone locking system plus it delivers wireless charging via the Qi charging plate. Phones like the LG G3, Galaxy S6 / S6 Edge, Lumia 920 and other handsets are all wireless compatible so you can just stick your phone in and it’ll begin charging. No need to worry about the cable, as you only install that once.
Getting the car mount installed depends on where you’d like it located. There’s a suction cup on the base, which you’d expect, and that either locks simply onto your windscreen or – with the aid of a stick-on disc – to your dashboard. I found that the stick-on disc didn’t work too well and, despite the suction cup fixing itself tightly to the disc, the weight of the phone and holder pulled the disc off the dashboard fairly quickly.
If you don’t fancy that, there’s an air vent attachment that connects the mount to your car that way. I’ve not been a big fan of these since my previous car had the vent blades pushed back by one, but you can fit it that way and swap out the mount from the back of the holder itself fairly easily.
In the box you’ll find the holder itself, complete with very decent holding arms either side and a sliding arm at the bottom which is adjustable so that you can tweak the height of your smartphone on the holder itself. You only need to do that once, then it’s just a matter of pushing in the buttons on the side of the holder to pop open the holding arms and dropping your phone in. The action of placing your phone into the holder will instantly snap shut those side-arms and you’ll find that your phone is secured.
Each arm has a rubber inner so there’s no chance of scratches and, on the side, an LED will let you know if the unit is receiving power.
Ahh yes, power. Despite the wireless charging, you will of course need some juice going to the unit itself. This is supplied via a microUSB cable which goes in the top of the device and, sadly, causes a few problems. For me, the holder and bracket worked brilliantly, with a natty slide-out system enabling you to swap said bracket. However, after prefering not to put it on the vents and failing to get it working on the dashboard, I tried it on the windscreen. Here it’s perfect, and the suction cup locking system, which rotates on a sturdy knob to stick to your windows, worked well. The holder itself can then be rotated around, with a screw to tighten it and hold position. Trouble is, with most windscreens, the top of the holder is then pretty much touching the windscreen, and you simply don’t have any room left for the USB plug to go in. Even if you do, it’ll push the holder down. No matter how I tried to do this, there was just no way to get that USB plug into the top of the unit whilst it was in portrait orientation on my windscreen.
If you don’t mind having it in “landscape” orientation, or you’re driving something with a less angled windscreen (perhaps a truck or similar), then the supplied cigarette charger will deliver the required 5V 2A input and then the wireless charging delivers 5V 1A.
All in all, a sturdy and well-made holder which charges your handset wires-free with a clever and simply locking mechanism. However, it’s a shame that the power port is at the top as it restricts you being able to properly mount it onto a windscreen.