Windows Phone Thoughts: Gomadic Universal Windshield Mount Reviewed

Problems I've Noticed
The most serious problem I encountered could be important depending on the temperature extremes where you live. I have found that when the temperature gets below freezing, the plastic suction cup becomes so rigid that instead of flexing when driving over bumps, it simply falls off the window! Similarly, in extremely hot temperatures, such as when sitting in a parking lot all day under the hot summer sun, the plastic becomes so soft and flexible that it falls off the window then, too. Neither of these seem to be a problem if you remove the mount from the window and then reattach it before you start driving. For the safety of your Pocket PC and its screen, I wanted to mention this. I almost had a mild heart attack when my trusty iPAQ fell from the window toward the floor of the car; I could imagine the LCD shattering as it impacted the shift knob or something on its way down. 8O Thankfully, it emerged unharmed.

A drawback to this product is that it can't be used with PDAs in their cases or with expansion sleeves attached. This means that those who use an iPAQ with, say, a CompactFlash GPS receiver or Expansion Pack Plus with auxiliary battery are out of luck with this mount. Cases or expansions packs will make the device either too wide or too thick for the arms to grip.

Another problem may affect you if your Pocket PC has buttons or a jog dial on the side. My old h5455 and my current hx4700 do not have any problems, but the Dell Axim X50v that I use at work has issues because the arms on the mount press the note record button on the side when squeezed together.


Figure 6: In this photo you can see the Universal Windshield Mount's grip arms pressing the record button on a Dell Axim X50v. This is rather annoying. On this model Pocket PC, the only way to prevent this is to switch on the button and touchscreen lock, which limits the usefulness of the device considerably.