I originally purchased the Arkon Weighted Friction Dash Mount for universal phone, smart phones about 2 years ago. As you can see from the picture, it is a suction cup mount for a smart phone that includes a weighted base. After suctioning the mount to the base, just place it on your dashboard. This mount is compatible with many phones and is very adjustable. The push-button release will open the side arms and you can then place your phone in the mount.
Then just squeeze the side-arms together to hold your phone securely. I had no problems with the side arms holding my phone, the Tmobile G2. It would occasionally press on the volume down button on the side of the phone though, but that was just a slight annoyance.
I had 1 major problem with the mount. The problem is that the suction cup wouldn’t always hold. It would most likely stay on for a whole day, but beyond that, it just wouldn’t. There are many times where I remounted the suction cup, only to have it fall off seconds later. Or minutes later. This happens no matter how much cleaning I did (alcohol prep pads). The only thing that helped a little was to lick the suction cup all the way around. And that only helped somewhat. It would still fall off sometimes, which would send my phone crashing into the center console of my car.
I ended up calling Arkon and inquiring about it. They sent me a new clampy thingy and I use the existing cradle and the existing base with the new suction cup. It didn’t work any better. So in the end, this one problem is the entire reason I gave up the mount, and sold it to someone (with full disclosure that they had to remount it every day).
Next I purchased this bad boy, the Arkon Mega Grip Floor Mount. It is bolted to the front seat bolt. The grip is the same as what I had, the Mega Grip, and it holds my new phone just fine (Samsung Galaxy S3). It took just 5 minutes (or perhaps less) to install. Now I don’t have to worry about the phone falling and hitting the console or floor any more. It works. End of story.
