CrunchGear

The VentMount

DLO is a company that makes its fortune manufacturing cool and useful accessories almost exclusively for Apple’s iPod. It makes every imaginable case, dock, cable, you name it. The VentMount is new. It’s a type of case for the iPhone and iPod Touch that clips into your car’s dashboard, allowing easy access to your device when you’re driving.

The Good Stuff

The VentMount works as promised. It clipped quite easily onto the center vent of my BMW and stayed there firmly. I’ve been driving with it for two days now and not once have I felt threatened that it was going to fall off.

It has a neat feature where you can unclip the holster from the mount itself, and then clip it to your belt. I don’t recommend this, as belts are not for iPhones, but it’s possible if you’d like to do so.

At the top are two strong clips you push into the vent. At the bottom is an easel-like support that fits in the vent to give you just the right angle. The mount swivels 360 degrees, which means you can have your iPhone in portrait or landscape mode. It clicks into place nicely and stays there.

It works great with the music playback features. It’s far enough out of the way that it doesn’t hinder Coverflow at all. There’s room at the bottom for your dock connector if you’ve got an iPod car kit. It’s perfect if you use the GPS and mapping features of your iPhone for directions, as it’s sturdy enough that hitting the “next” button won’t shift it.

I know I’m going to be pivoting it to watch movies when I’m waiting for my loser friends who are always late.

Not so good

The only real problem I have with the VentMount is that once I had it installed it was fairly hard to get it uninstalled. I decided it was too low, blocking a couple of my stereo’s buttons, so I wanted to move it up. It took some jiggering, but I finally managed to get the clips into an angle that got them free.

It’s not impossible, just a pain in the ass. Make sure you know where to put it before you commit.

Conclusion

If you’re an iPhone or iPod Touch user with a car, this is probably a must-have item, especially for those of you with car kits. It does exactly what it’s supposed to and not much more, and for $25, I’m totally OK with that.