When you are looking to attach your phone to your car, is it better to use a magnet or a suction cup? With the advancement in cellular phone technology, phones are supplanting dedicated GPS units as the best and easiest mode to find your best route and get through traffic. But with so many holders available, which attachment method is the best one?
Suction Cups – Pros and Cons
Suction cups are extremely versatile in that they can be attached to a number of different surfaces without the need for much preparation. The surface needs to be smooth which can be a problem, but the ideal surface for suction cups is glass, and of course that is easily accessible in a car.
Unfortunately aside from the strength of connecting to glass, there isn’t a lot that suction cups have going for them. The actual connection to the glass can be more difficult than people realize. Both the surface of the glass and the surface of the suction cup have to be totally clean or the connection will not hold for long. In fact it’s virtually impossible to make both the glass and the suction cup perfectly clean so it is only a matter of time before it falls.
Additionally the change in temperature can affect the hold that the suction cup has. Both the suction cup and the glass will expand and contract as the weather changes and these small changes will wear down the connection. Additionally suction cups have a useful life as the plastic of the cup will grow brittle in time and will no longer be useful (and the more the temperature changes the faster it turn brittle).
So while the suction cup has a major attraction in it’s ability to connect to the windshield, there are a number of mitigating factors that limit the benefits of suction cups as phone holders.
Magnets – Pros and Cons
Magnets have a lot going for them in terms of functionality and flexibility and in particular the strengths of magnets line up fairly well with the the weaknesses of suction cups.
Magnets do not need to be readjusted or fixed, and their useful life is longer than the life of your phone or your car. Neodymium ones lose less than 1% of their strength over 10 years. Samarium-cobalt takes around 700 years to lose half their strength. Permanent magnets such as sintered Nd-Fe-B remain magnetized indefinitely. So for the purposes of holding your phone, it will never fail.
Additionally things like dust make no difference to magnets. There is no need to worry about specks of dust or making sure the surfaces are clean or the connection is perfect. That all sorts itself out. Also for those who are looking to use a phone holder on a boat, magnets are not affected by water, so with waterproof phones we have these days it’s perfect for boating.
The one catch is that you need the magnet itself and metal surfaces. Usually phones do not have enough metal to create a strong bond and cars use little metal, especially in the front dash. So you need to attach something with a proper adhesive to the dash to hold the magnet, and then a piece of metal to your phone or your case. The second part of that may be changing as Apple’s new phone is coming out with a magnet built into the actual phone itself, so the metal attachment is unnecessary.
An Easy Win for Magnets
Overall the functionality, simplicity and long term capability of magnets wins out in this battle. The only drawback is the need to attach something. Some attach to a vent so there it can be easily removed. Other attach to the dash or window with an adhesive, but there are many adhesives these days that are both strong and removable. In the end, using a magnet ensure not only ease of use and high functionality but also product longevity. Magnets are the clear winner in this one.