Product review: Ram phone mounts for your bike or car

Having gone through a galaxy of cheap in-car phone mounts, I was disillusioned with what was available. It seemed very wasteful to repeatedly spend between Rs 300 and Rs 900 on cheap plastic thingamabobs that would inexplicably just fail after a while. At about the same time, I tried Rynox's functional phone mount on the bike to navigate Bangalore on one of my runs to the racetrack. It worked but anything that claims to be water resistant is a halfway house. I understand that most customers wouldn't need it but the Rynox mount also worked with a narrow range of handlebar diameters which is an unfortunate restriction because I keep having to switch bikes.

My first Ram Mount purchase was a bike phone mount set for roughly Rs 4,000 from Revzilla in the US. Ram uses a system of ball and socket joints to create a highly adjustable, extremely rigid mount. My set included two U-bolts with a ball for a wide range of handlebars, a long rod with two sockets at each end and Ram's well-reviewed and appreciated X-Grip phone mount.

Tightening the Nyloc nuts required tools but the mounting proved to be near-perfect. Once convinced, I was happy to try other mounts to replace the U-bolt. I've used a mirror stalk mount (excellent), clutch lever clamp mounts (excellent but adjustability is restricted), the claw mount (excellent, but doesn't play well with clip-ons) and the handlebar clamp bolt mount (excellent, my personal favourite and likely to be a feature on all my personal motorcycles going forward). I may have spent between Rs 300 and Rs 1,500 on these bits but the bar clamp mount is all I'm buying from here on which is about Rs 300 per bike.

The beauty of the Ram Mounts is that the whole system is modular. You can buy a plethora of mounts for cars, bikes and more, another massive range for your electronics – GPS, phones, tablets and even laptops plus extensions, plates and rods with balls or sockets designed to fit into the system. I use their 0.75" ball but bigger balls underpin systems built for heavier loads too.

In use, the mounts prove to be extremely adjustable as well as extremely rigid so vibration is almost entirely a non-issue. A combination of metal and plastic, the build and finish is hard-wearing though the balls themselves can look iffy very quickly – this doesn't affect their functionality though.

The downsides are few. First, it's an expensive system initially though expanding it is not and replacing broken or worn bits isn't either. Second, the X-Grip, specifically, holds iPhones right over the Mute switch. Third, it is an expensive system from the security perspective. I'm not happy to leave the mount on the bike and that means carrying a bulky, slightly heavy mount around. Ram sells a small key-locked thingy but I'd just rather carry the thingamabob with me.

I purchased my things from a combination of Amazon, Revzilla and Union Garage NYC in the US and Kushitani in Japan. But Ram Mounts are easily available online in India. We recommend you check out Happy Earth Enterprises LLC or Resonate, both are very quick to respond and ship and very friendly to deal with.

Available for Rs 300 – Rs 4,500 at happyearth.in