When I’m driving in the car typically my iPhone sits loosely on my seat. This means that when I take a sharp turn suddenly my phone slides all the way across the seat — sometimes on the the floor. So I was interested to see how Griffin’s WindowSeat would work to keep my iPhone firmly in sight – and in place in the car.
The Griffin WindowSeat ships with three changeable bases. There’s one for the iPhone (original), one for the iPhone 3G and one for the iPod Touch. An extension base is included in case the mount runs into your dashboard. Using the extension you can push the base out another 4 to 6 inches.
There’s also a speaker extension cable for plugging your iPhone/Touch into an AUX-in equipped car stereo (this is a double ended headphone type plug).
Changing each of the bases is simple, you remove the old base and screw on another. The attachment is tight and won’t fall off or work loose due to vibrations in the car.
You can attach the base to your car window via a suction cup. There’s also an included adhesive if you prefer to mess up your dash with a lot of sticky residue (can you tell that I’d never ever glue anything to my dash?).
During testing the iPhone never moved around or worked loose. The suction cup never fell off my window in the two weeks that I had it mounted (no small feat as my Garmin Nuvi GPS mount works loose at least weekly).
The one issue that I experienced was that the mount was a tight fit when it held my iPhone in portrait mode. I have a Honda Accord and the dash and instrument panel inconveniently got in the way of where I wanted to mount my Griffin Windows Seat. This is purely personal preference on my part and not really an issue with the mount. I could have turned it to landscape and eliminated this issue however landscape on the iPhone won’t work with email (which is what I use the iPhone for most of the time in the car).
There is an included extension adapter which you can use to lengthen the mount by about another 4 to 6″ which may get it past any sharply sloped dashboards.
The only other concern I had was the need to remove my iPhone from it’s case prior to mounting it in the WindowSeat. I found that to be rather inconvenient since I use a clear case full time on my iPhone (as probably a lot of people do). Rather than remove the phone from the case each time I got into the car, I found I’d start to sporadically use my WindowSeat just because it was inconvenient to constantly pry open my case and remove the iPhone.
Link: Griffin WindowSeat – $29.99
What I Liked:
– Secure, doesn’t jiggle or fall off window
– Gets the iPhone or Touch off your car seat
– Adjusts easily to different viewing angles
What Could Be Improved:
– Not a thing Modify the mount so it somehow accepts an iPhone or Touch that’s in a case