The Garmin mobile phone mount is a great way to make it safer while using your Helio device for GPS when driving. Available from the Helio store as the “Garmin Car Cradle”, it will set you back $29.00.

What you get in the box: The socket/phone holder, the “arm”/suction, a dashboard mount disc (in case it’s illegal to mount things to your windshield in your state), 6 pegs, and 4 additional pegs. Yep, that’s right, no instructions. The geniuses down at Garmin felt that their product didn’t need an instruction booklet. I disagree, I had to consult two different people and stare blankly at all the different pieces before I could get it fully put together and functional. With that aside, it does it’s job as a mobile phone mount for cars very well.



To get started on putting this little gadget together, you have to slide on the pegs that hold your phone/device in place. There are 4 large ones that you just slide on from the top. The other 2 you have to expand the holder by pulling on each side and slide them on at the bottom. Those pegs are the only major problem I had with this product, once you figure out that part, it’s all good. From there, connect the arm of the mount into the socket. On the third picture, there is that “flap” at the end. That needs to be loose before you suction it to the window, otherwise it won’t work. Once you position it onto the window, fold it down and it will pull the suction cup upwards making it hold very strongly. That was another thing I had no clue how to use, but I guess if you have ever used any other kind of window mount, you’d know what it does. If you are using the dashboard mount disc, just peel off the red plastic, clean off an area on your dashboard and suction to the disc the same way you would on the windshield. The dashboard in my Honda Civic is pretty small and there’s really not any where to place it, so the windshield works fine for me.


As you can see from the pictures, all of Helio’s devices should fit fine into it without a problem. Even if you aren’t using it for GPS, you could easily use it to hold your phone while you Bluetooth it up. You could even throw your MP3 player into it, which I use way more than my GPS. The iPod Video just barely fits into the mount, so that gives you an idea of what you can shove into it.

And because I like to use things in ways they weren’t meant to be, I’ve included two additional ways you can enjoy the Garmin mount. Not only can you use it as a dock for devices, you can use it as a drink holder as well (Excuse the mess, my natural habitat is a pigsty).

Overall, it’s a pretty solid product. It has a good range of motion, very good suction, and multiple uses. Only bad thing is that Garmin does not include instructions to a slightly non-intuitive product.