REVIEW – We all carry phones everywhere, and use them in our vehicles – that ship has sailed. We do not advocate using them while the vehicle is in motion, but being able to grab your phone when at a light or pulled off the roadway to change a route, answer an urgent message, call someone, etc. is valuable. CYEVA has created a way to have your phone as close at hand as your coffee, and they sent me one to test. It’s simply called the Car Cup Holder, and I’m happy to report on my usage.
What is it?
The CYEVA cupholder phone mount is a vehicle cup-holder insert with a phone holder mounted on an adjustable arm.
What’s in the box?
- Cupholder insert
- Replacement cup holder
- Mounting arm
- Phone holder/bracket
- Screws and screwdriver
- Silicone Coaster
- Instruction sheet
Design and features
The CYEVA cupholder phone mount is shipped as four main pieces: an insert, a replacement holder, a mounting arm, and a bracket. They are mostly made of a black thermoplastic that is fairly rigid. The coaster and the ends of the wedges use soft and grippy materials. The phone holding bracket holds my iPhone 13 Pro Max in a full-body case easily with enough room for a ring mount on the back to not have to be removed. (The ring mount is .1875″ thick. That’s three-sixteenths.) You place the phone in, squeeze the sides in, and the center bottom of the phone is then positioned for a charging cable through a slot in the bottom lip. To release, press the button near the rear socket, and the sides expand out and release the phone. I can do it with gloves on.
Setup
You’ll need to assemble the pieces before use. I’d suggest getting familiar with how the three wedges on the insert work before attaching the replacement cup to that insert. This will be a little difficult to describe, but look at the pictures first and it’ll all make sense.
There are two major pieces to the CYEVA cupholder phone mount: an insert that slips into your vehicle’s existing holder (which looks like a black 3D model of a tall coffee with a to-go lid attached), and a replacement holder that sits atop that insert. These are joined by a single screw, but there are three different holes you can attach through the bottom of the replacement holder, depending on your vehicle and how you want to have the new unit sit. Any of them are OK. I like that you can offset things, in case your console controls fit oddly. Between the arm adjustments and the offsets available from mounting on any of the three screw mount points, you have a lot of flexibility.
On the insert, there are three pieces that push out when the top of the unit is twisted, wedging them into the existing holder. Once it is in place and the top replacement holder is screwed onto it, place the inner rubber coaster disc into the bottom of the replacement holder.
The phone holder/arm assembly is next. The phone holder has a socket on the back with a threaded ring around it to tighten it down. Loosen it enough to allow the ball from the arm to pop into the socket, and tighten the ring a little. Don’t fully tighten it yet.
The other end of the arm slides down into the rectangular piece on the replacement cupholder. It’s a friction fit, and not excessively tight. You may now want to change where that fitting is, given your vehicle layout. You’ll need to untwist the insert enough to spin the unit around, then twist it into place and reattach the arm. It takes more to read this and think about it than it does to do it, and none of this is written in concrete. I change mine every few days, depending on what I’ve got in the cupholder and how interactive I need to be with my phone.
Note that on the arm, there is a knob that adjusts the angle and another that adjusts the length of the arm itself. The ball-and-socket joint adjusts your phone’s angle and direction.
Looking at their website, this is kinda CYEVA’s superpower, that knob on the replacement holder. They have coin holders, a food tray holder, and various other things that can attach to this enlarged insert/replacement unit. Check into it to see if there is a configuration you like if this one isn’t your thing.
Performance
I’ve been using the CYEVA cupholder phone mount since the day after it arrived. There are days I love it, and days it seems to get in my way. I’m slowly becoming someone who just puts my phone in it and lets it be every time I drive, but I don’t want to be halfway across a parking lot without my phone. Maybe I need to set up a notification for when I’m more than ten feet from my phone. I normally leave my phone in my pocket, because my commute is only a half hour, usually, and I have a pretty decent charging routine. (A car-mounted Apple Watch charger would be attractive to me, however!) I must say that having the easy reach with this holder has kinda spoiled me.
What I like
- Large enough for bigger cups
- Two slots for handles
- Very adjustable
What I’d change
- Not anything, really.
Final thoughts
We’re moving from one heavy-travel time to another, from summer vacations to fall-winter family trips. I find that many friends now use the phone GPS even when driving a familiar route, due to the near-instant rerouting that can take you around potentially hours-long hazards. Having a phone mount like the CYEVA cupholder phone mount will certainly make the trip “over the river and through the woods” safer by getting your phone up out of the console and more into your vision.
Price: $31.99
Where to buy: Amazon
Source: The sample of this product was provided by CYEVA.
