REVIEW – Wireless technology has simplified charging for smartphone users. Apple’s MagSafe wireless charging has become an essential feature for many smartphone users. The Zagg mophie Wireless Charing Vent Mount with MagSafe offers the convenience of wireless charging with the practicality of a vent mount, and it takes full advantage of Apple’s innovative MagSafe technology.
What is it?
The Zagg mophie wireless charging vent mount with MagSafe is an “Apple Exclusive” car vent universal mounted charger for Apple MagSafe-capable iPhones.
What’s in the box?
The Zagg mophie wireless charging vent mount with MagSafe comes in a clean-looking recyclable cardboard box.
The Zagg mophie wireless charging vent mount with MagSafe includes the items listed below
- Magnetic vent mount with metal mounting hook
- Offset extension arm
- USB-C 20-Watt car charger
- 1.5-meter USB-C cable
- Cable management clip
- Cleaning wipe
- Quick Start Guide
Hardware specs
Hardware specs for the Zagg mophie wireless charging vent mount with MagSafe are as follows:
- Mounting method – Adjustable car vent hook (hook travel distance 8-33mm)
- Charging method – Apple MagSafe wireless charging
- Charging power – 15 Watt fast charging via 20 Watt DC car adapter
- Color – Black
- Compatibility – All MagSafe-equipped iPhones including iPhone 12, 13, and 14 models
- Warranty – 2 years
Design and features
The Zagg mophie wireless charging vent mount with MagSafe is comprised of five separate components that can be disassembled from one another. This allows for a bit of customization in the configuration of the mount based on your needs. You can see in the photo above that the mount’s design includes two “ball-and-socket” style joints that allow the position of the components to be adjusted.
The mount’s mounting mechanism is a metal hook that attaches to virtually any air vent in your car’s dashboard. Turing the knurled base pushes the hook outward or retracts it inward, which allows the hook’s length to be customized to your car’s vent. You can also see one of the “ball” features of the two ball-and-socket joints.
The mount’s MagSafe base is shown above. It has a smooth white disk that attaches magnetically to the magnets in the back of your iPhone.
The mount’s included USB-C cable plugs into a USB-C port on the back of the MagSafe base. This provides power to the MagSafe base that allows it to charge your iPhone.
The “standard” configuration of the vent mount is shown above. It’s the simplest configuration and includes just the MagSafe base that attaches to your iPhone (the component on the left in the above photo) and the hook base that attaches to your car’s vent (the component on the right). This standard configuration includes one of the ball-and-socket style joints that provides adjustability in positioning, but this is somewhat limited.
The mount’s alternate configuration includes the offset adapter situated between the MagSafe base and the hook base. Using the offset adapter component allows greater adjustability and flexibility in mounting options because it includes two ball-and-socket joints, both of which can be pivoted to provide a higher degree of adjustment.
The mount includes a mophie 2o-Watt car charger. This charger has all metal components and both looks and feels very high quality and durable.
The mophie 20-Watt car charger has a USB-C port and a tiny LED to indicate when it is plugged in and receiving power from your car.
The mount also includes a small cable management clip. The clip is firm but flexible rubber with a channel in the center for the USB-C power. The clip has an adhesive backing to allow you to stick it to your car’s dashboard to help keep the USB-C from getting unruly.
Shown above is the full Zagg mophie wireless charging vent mount with MagSafe. This includes the mount itself with all components, the USB-C cable, and the 20-Watt car charger.
Setup
The setup of the Zagg mophie wireless charging vent mount with MagSafe is quite simple. It utilizes the metal hook to attach the mount base to your car’s vent. The hook can be extended or retracted to fit your specific car’s vent design. The hook grabs onto any of the slats on the vent cover.
To adjust the hook’s length, twist the knurled base until the hook protrudes to the length needed to “grab” the back of a vent slat, then turn the knurled base in the opposite direction, retracting the hook until it is secured to the slat.
Once the hook has been sufficiently tightened, the base is secured to the vent, providing a stable platform for holding your iPhone.
In the photo above, you can see that I’ve installed the mount with the offset extension arm to give myself a bit more adjustability in positioning. I’ve also installed it in the top right corner of this vent.
As seen above, the mophie 20-Watt car charger plugs into your car and the USB-C cable connects it to the MagSafe base. You’ll notice here that I had to coil up USB-C cable because, at 1.5 meters in length, it’s a bit long for my needs. Maybe someone would need to run the USB-C cable the full 1.5 meters between the car charger and the MagSafe base, but I definitely don’t need the USB-C cable to be that long. I elected not to attach the cable management clip initially because I couldn’t quite figure out where I wanted to put it.
The photo above shows the full setup of the Zagg mophie wireless charging vent mount with MagSafe.
Performance
For this review, my wife kindly allowed me to use her iPhone 13 Pro Max in its Speck Presidio MagSafe case so I could take photos with my own iPhone.
The MagSafe feature of the case allows it to directly attach to the MagSafe base of the Zagg mophie wireless charging vent mount with MagSafe. I expected this attachment to be a bit easier than it actually was. I had pictured that the MagSafe features would align themselves together and, considering they are magnets, just “snap” into place, but in practice, it wasn’t quite so smooth. I had to slide the iPhone around on the MagSafe mount base until they locked together. Not really a show-stopper, but it was a bit less convenient than I had expected. In any case, once the MagSafe features made contact, the iPhone displayed the above, indicating that MagSafe charging had commenced.
Another issue I occasionally encountered was that, when I attached the iPhone to the MagSafe base on the mount, it kept flashing back to the MagSafe charging screen (seen above) every few seconds. To stop this, I had to remove the iPhone from the MagSafe base for a minute or two, then reattach it. This usually fixed the problem, but it was frustrating nonetheless.
One of the capabilities of MagSafe is that it allows for either portrait or landscape orientation of your iPhone, and the mount also provides this capability, as shown above.
With the iPhone in landscape orientation, it sits in a position just above the gear shift of my car, and in a spot that provides good visibility to the iPhone’s screen without protruding above the dashboard and obscuring my view of the road.
Using the offset adapter component allowed me to adjust the position of the MagSafe mount component so that I could get the iPhone in the perfect position for viewing it. This also allows quick adjustment for when my wife drives our car so she can put the iPhone in a location that is perfect for her own viewing.
However, when using the offset adapter, the iPhone bounced around while driving, particularly on less than perfect roads. Again, not a show-stopper, but noticeable and a bit irritating.
The landscape orientation of the iPhone looks great as well.
However, this brings me to the final issue with this product. While its metal hook provides a high level of universality in mounting capability (it can be attached to nearly any car vent), what you lose is the ability to adjust the direction of airflow from the vent. This is because, when retracting the hook toward the base so it can tightly “grab” the vent slat to which it is attached, this effectively “locks” the vent into a single position. A couple of caveats here. First, this may not be the same for every vehicle depending on the design of its vents, so the situation with your car may be different. Second, this may not matter to you, and if so, it may not be an issue. However, my wife and I have different preferences for vent airflow, and unfortunately, the metal hook mounting prevents adjustment of the vent (at least it did in our vehicle).
In an effort to evaluate other mount configurations, in the pic above I’ve removed the offset adapter component and gone with just the hook base and MagSafe base. This configuration still allows some adjustability, because one of the two ball-and-socket joints is present.
When I created this particular setup, I moved the mount down to the lower right of the vent. Doing this, and removing the offset adapter component moved the location of the mount downward, causing it to butt up against my car’s gear shift handle with the iPhone in landscape orientation. In this location and mount configuration, it wasn’t possible to place the iPhone in portrait orientation due to interference with the gear shifters. Even if I’d moved the hook base up to a higher position on the vent, there wouldn’t have been enough clearance for portrait orientation. I could have moved the hook base to the left side of the vent in order to clear the gear shifter handle, but this would have placed the iPhone behind my steering wheel, preventing a clear line of sight to the iPhone’s screen.
What I like
- MagSafe compatible
- Significant degree of adjustability
- Solidly constructed
- Nearly universal mounting capability
What I’d change
- iPhone occasionally kept flashing back to the MagSafe screen after attaching it to the mount
- Hook-style mounting may prevent adjustment of the vent’s airflow direction
- iPhone bounces around on less-than-perfect streets and roads, particularly when using the offset adapter
Final thoughts
Zagg mophie wireless charging vent mount with MagSafe was a mixed bag for me, with several useful features yet some frustrating shortcomings. All things considered, its price tag seems a bit high but I suspect this may be due to it being an “Apple Exclusive” product.
Price: $99.95
Where to buy: Apple
Source: The sample of this product was provided by ZAGG.
