Finding a safe and secure way to mount your phone in the car can be a bit of a mission as there are so many different types of car holder available. Some of the universal car holders can be a bit weak, not strong enough to hold some of the bigger handsets or cope with heavy use. Nokia are well known for making high quality mobile phone accessories, so I thought I’d take a look at their Universal Car Cradles to see what these have that some of the cheaper alternatives don’t.
Nokia CR-39 Car Holder
The Nokia CR-39 Car Holder is the simplest and smallest one of the three. It has an adjustable clamp to hold your handset and has a quick release button that releases your phone quickly and easily. The bottom resting plate can also be extended for wider handsets. The side clamps are solid with a soft padded cushion to grip your phone, it does mean that for some handsets they might cover or press some of the buttons mounted on the side of your phone, so to try and over come this problem, the CR-39 can be used ‘upside down’. The bottom resting plate and the top edge can both be removed and put on the opposite ends of the holder. This will mean that the clamps then sit about 1cm lower which, depending on your phone, may prevent it from covering the volume keys.
The CR-39 will hold handsets that are 95 – 120mm tall, 42-55mm wide, 13-26mm thick and weigh no more than 200g.
Nokia CR-39 can be adjusted to work with most handsets
Nokia CR-82 Car Holder
The Nokia CR-82 has a couple of extra features over the CR-39. It has adjustable side grips, but instead of being a solid, padded cushion, these are plastic loops with a soft rubber pad. Personally I think this type of grip is better as there is less chance of any buttons being covered or pressed by the holder. They’re also a little bit shorter too. The release button is not so obvious either. Instead of one button that sticks out about 1cm, the release button on the CR-82 is actually 2 buttons at the top of the holder. To release your phone is just a case of squeezing these buttons.
The Nokia CR-82 is perfect for all handsets that are 70 – 135mm tall, 40-50mm wide, 8-26mm thick and weigh no more than 200g.
Nokia CR-82 Car Holder
Nokia CR-99 Car Holder
The CR-99 is essentially the same as the CR-82, but is slightly larger. It’s designed for bigger handsets such as the Nokia N97, 5800 and E91. It has the same soft rubber grips as the CR-82, but they’re positioned a lot higher up, with the release buttons further down.
The CR-99 can take larger handsets that are 70 – 135mm tall, 45-55mm wide, 8-26mm thick and weigh no more than 200g.
Nokia CR-99 Car Holder
Charging your Phone
The main difference between the CR-39 and the CR-99 & CR-82 is the addition of a holder for your car charger that takes away the hassle of fishing around in the car for the end of it and plugging it into your phone. You get two different sized charger ‘nuts’, the idea behind this is that if the keys on your phone are covered by the grips, you can use the taller ‘nut’ to raise your phone up by about 1cm. Not a massive amount, but it should be enough to stop the holder from taking photo’s or changing the volume during a call!
Nokia CR82 & CR99 both have built in cable holders
The charger nut can be adjusted (rotated and moved left/right) so that it holds the charger in the right place for your phone and means that the next time you put your phone in the cradle, the charger should just connect with out you having to plug anything in.
The only downside to this is that they only work with the 2mm Nokia DC-4 Car Charger. As the hole where the charger goes is moulded specifically for the DC-4, you can’t use any other manufacturers or third party chargers with them for direct charging. Having said that, Nokia have built into the nut a kind of cable tidy, so if your charging port is on the side of the phone, or your phone doesn’t take a 2mm charger, you can hang your car charger from it. It means you still have to plug the charger into the phone yourself, but finding the end will be a whole lot faster.
Fitting the Holder to your Car
Each of these Nokia Holders include the standard Nokia adjustable mount which should ideally be screwed to a flat surface in your car. If you don’t want to screw into your dashboard (and I know I certainly wouldn’t) then a ProClip from Brodit is your answer. Brodit ProClips are strong plastic mounts that clip onto your dashboard without causing any damage and provide a great base for attaching car holders onto. Proclips are vehicle specific and are normally available for a choice of locations. Head over to our Brodit page for more information on ProClips. Once you’ve fixed the holder to it, you can then adjust it to an angle to suit your driving position and tighten the screws to keep it in place. Once in place, the holder can’t be adjusted, so if you share the vehicle with someone, its probably best to make sure it’s suitable for all drivers before you put your screwdriver away!
Mount your Nokia Car Holder onto a Brodit ProClip or HH12 Mount to prevent damaging your dashboard
If you want a less permanent option for mounting the holder in the car, then look at the Nokia HH-12. This is a windscreen suction mount holder, that you can then securely attach the Nokia CR Holder onto. The HH-12 is a strong and durable mount that’s similar in design and durabilty to the early TomTom windscreen mounts. Unlike using a screw fixing, the HH-12 allows you to adjust the position of the holder once it’s attached.