I ordered an iPhone 13 Mini on launch day, and wanted a magsafe phone mount for my car to replace my old acoustic mount. I've seen good reviews for the ESR Halolock, but 1) I hadn't used that brand before and 2) honestly it's butt-ugly. I searched around and discovered that Anker semi-recently released a magsafe-compatible car mount at the same price point, and since I've had nothing but good experiences with Anker, I decided to try theirs out.

TL;DR: it's good, buy it

Photos here

Video here (Shown with an iPhone 13 Mini case)

The mount is much slimmer and sleeker than I expected, and imo it looks really good. The magnets are super strong - I have no worries about the phone coming off driving over bumps - but it's still really easy to grab the phone from it. I can't test the specific magsafe charging of it, but it qi charges my iPhone 11 just fine (Anker says it can deliver up to 7.5W). I bought an Anker 12V adapter to go with it and it's working great to power the mount and my dashcam.

You might notice in the video that the mount is attached into my CD player - that's actually half of my old mount (I think it was this one). Since both mounts use the same size ball-joint mechanism, I was able to combine them. I haven't tested the vent clip or 3M pad the Anker mount came with, but they both seem like sturdy versions of those types of things.

Anyway, lemme know if there's anything else talk want to know about the mount.

[This is not sponsored in any way, I just wanted to share my thoughts]

I received the new Anker Prime Wireless Car Charger today.

Shipped express for USD $72.74. Yeah, that's expensive, but I wanted a good strong-magnet 25W Qi2.2 charger for the car. One that could hold a Pixel 10 Pro XL, and this seemed alright.

So far, it's pretty good! The Charger has a twist-tight "hook" that extends out and retracts, intended to grab something flat like a vent. I'm going to make some kind of mount for it so it's not stressing the air vent. The clamp mount doesn't appear removable, which is too bad since I'd like to have some simpler mount to attach to.

It includes a 12v Cigarette-lighter DC plug, with USB-C and USB-A outputs, rated 48W. As far as I can tell, the charger itself uses only USB-C 15v 3A.

There is a black no-chip USB-C cable with some adhesive rubber hold-down clips to make it tidy.

The only real surprise here is that the AirCool -- works? It gets genuinely cold, not just fan-cooled. It has to have a Peltier junction or something thermoelectric in there to chill it. It gets BELOW room temperature at the surface, and pretty hot at the heatsink. The fan is quiet -- won't notice it in a car.

The magnets are strong -- bonus. It does grip the phone well right through the case.

However, the cooling doesn't work well through the case. Silicone is a great insulator! The phone gets hot charging and the charger itself stays cold, but I think with no-case the phone would benefit from the cooling more, sucking heat out of the phone backside.

No problems charging the Pixel 10 XL, and I've seen brief spikes over 20W charge current, so it's compatible and working. There is a blue LED on the back of the charger that I don't particularly like in a dark car. No way to turn it off. Too bad about that.

Is it worth $73? There's not much competition in the 25W car space. You have to want this kind of mount, since there's no other option. I'm hoping there are some 3D printed holders for it that bust it off at the ball joint and take over.

Hello I am currently researching to find a good MagSafe charger/ car mount for my 2014 Ford Escape. Not sure if car model really matters thought I’d add in anyway. I’d prefer one for the dashboard but open to other ideas. I’d also like to have one that is fairly easy to install. If anyone has recommendations I would appreciate them. Thanks.

I just got an Anker Prime Qi Car Charger have have been playing with it. I have been oddly obsessed with finding the best wireless car charger for close to ten years now. I've used every style you can imagine, every type of mount that's out there, and this will be my fourth Magsafe specific car charger that I've tried (I'm including one that was literally a 3D printed mount that accepted Apple's Magsafe Charging puck, too).

Currently, I have this 15w ESR car charger installed and have, for the most part, been happy with it. It charges my iPhone 16 Pro well and the fan does actually keep the phone cool, which is very nice. I do have two complaints for the ESR one that I'm hoping this Anker one will solve: first, the vent mount on the ESR is a clip that just barely fits between my vents. It holds the phone mostly fine, but it's definitely a lot wobblier than it should be and I have had the car mount fall off while driving more than once. This is not ideal. Second, with the small children that are often climbing around in my car, they have broken several USB-C cables that were powering this thing. In frustrating fashion, only certain USB-C cables actually work with the ESR charger and ESR will not send you a replacement cable, even if you offer to pay for it. I think I tried ten different cables (including a Thunderbolt 4 cable just for fun) and the only one that worked for me was Apple's braided cable USB-C cable, so I was out another $50 on a $40 purchase. I am non-plussed.

The Anker Prime charger's mount is probably the best vent-mount I've ever used. Its thin hook fits between the vents no problem and latches on securely. The base spreads the weight of the charger out over almost the entire vertical aspect of the vent, giving it a secure hold that does not wobble. If this charger falls on the floor, it's because the vent itself fell off the car, and is a sign that you have much bigger problems.

I live in an area where it gets punishingly hot inside a car in the summer months and absurdly cold in the winter. The mount covers a little less than half of the total area of the vent. In the winter, I will absolutely be shutting the vent that it's mounted to. This is a bummer because I keep it mounted on the vent by the driver door, meaning that my driver window will likely take longer to defrost, but I am absolutely not going to be blasting hot air past my phone while it's on a charger. In the summer months, though, this will be great.

The magnet is very, very strong. I have no concerns that my phone will fall off. I'm also using a Pitaka case on my iPhone 16 Pro and that does seem to help with both magnet strength and with dissipating the heat, especially compared to a silicone case.

Speaking of heat dissipation, I'm very impressed. I charged my phone from 60% to 100% on a 2.5 hour car ride (it was certainly fully charged well before I got home, though I don't know how long it took because I was driving) and the phone remained cool to the touch the entire time. That was shockingly impressive.

I have not tested a variety of cables just yet, so I don't know if that problem is solved or if it's going to be equally finicky as the ESR one I was using. But even if it is, the hold on the vent is so good that I'm already sold that this is going to be the charger I stick with. I'll give the ESR one to my wife, who is much less... passionate about this than I am.

My ONE complaint about the Anker one: I cannot see any way to remove the charger from the mount, meaning that you will absolutely be mounting this to a vent. My ESR charger can be removed from the mount and uses a mostly-standard ball, meaning I can put it on e.g. a CD slot mount. I did that but ultimately didn't like it for a number of reasons so it got moved back to a vent mount next to the driver side door. Point is: if you want the Anker charger but you want to mount it anywhere other than on a vent, you're SOL.

At the time of this post, Anker's is on sale for $65 on Amazon. Is it worth the upgrade if you already have a Qi car charger that you like? It's hard to say. For me, it is. But that's probably because of my vents, which make the ESR one less-than-ideal. At the same time, ESR's is only $38 on Amazon and, until I got the Anker one, that was my favorite Qi car charger by a mile, so much so that I bought a new one when the cable broke because that was cheaper than buying a new cable (which really, really frustrates me to no end and for several reasons).

So you have to decide: is presumably faster charging and a clearly superior vent mount worth paying almost twice as much to you? For me, the answer is probably yes, but again, that's the vent-mount. I could probably find a cheaper one with a similar vent mount and save myself a little bit of money, but probably not enough to justify returning this one.

For others, the answer will be no. If you don't need to charge your phone SUPER quickly in the car and if you have vents that can fit the ESR one without much difficulty (or if you have a mount that you like and are looking for a better charger), you will not be sad with ESR's.