The Best Motorcycle Phone Mounts

The twist-lock connection is the closest thing to a sure bet here. Your phone sits in a case with a molded fitting, then rotates a quarter turn onto the mount. Motorcyclist's comparison found this two-step motion the hardest to undo by accident, which is exactly what you want from something holding a phone at highway speed. Nothing grips your phone's edges. Nothing depends on a magnet alone.

The dampener is the part most riders skip, and they shouldn't. Sustained engine vibration is what damages a phone's optical image stabilization, and DPReview describes those lens assemblies as spring-suspended actuators that fatigue under prolonged resonant shaking. Quad Lock builds this dampener to filter high-frequency vibration before it reaches your phone, not just to soften bumps. If you ride a single or a twin, that distinction matters.

The hardware is built like a machine part, not a phone accessory. The clamp is black anodized CNC-machined aluminum with a lever you tighten by hand. It covers bar diameters from 7/8 inch through 1-3/8 inch, which takes in most street bikes and plenty of cruisers. Sun and rain don't chalk anodized aluminum the way they wear on molded plastic. You install it once and stop thinking about it.

The kit also throws in the MAG Universal Adaptor, a thin disc that sticks to the back of a phone or case. That's a useful escape hatch. If you don't want to buy a Quad Lock case for your current phone, the adaptor gets you onto the same mount. It's a compromise rather than a replacement, but it means the mount outlives any one phone in your pocket.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The case is the catch. To get the full twist-lock hold, you buy a Quad Lock case for your specific phone, and when you upgrade you buy another one. The included adhesive adaptor is a workaround, and Quad Lock says it won't stick to rubber, silicone, TPU or soft-touch coatings. That rules out a lot of the grippy cases people already own.

This is also the most expensive setup here, and the dampener adds height. Stack the clamp, the dampener and your phone and you get a taller assembly than a slim quarter-turn mount gives you. If you ride tucked behind a sportbike screen, that extra height is worth thinking about before you order.

You buy a phone. Two years later you buy another one, and it's a different size. The X-Grip doesn't care. Its spring-loaded arms expand and contract around whatever you put in them, up to roughly 4.5 inches wide with a case on, and the openings leave your ports and buttons reachable. That's why touring riders running bulky rugged cases keep coming back to this cradle.

The ball-and-socket joints do more than set your viewing angle. The rubberized composite flexes slightly under load, damping vibration at each joint instead of passing it straight up the arm. Adventure Motorcycle Magazine notes that RAM has used this design in law enforcement and commercial vehicles for decades. Two joints also mean you can tip the phone up toward your eyes rather than flat at the sky.

Materials are the other reason this thing survives. Powder-coated marine-grade aluminum, stainless steel and high-strength composite shrug off rain and road salt. RAM includes rubber caps plus a small tube of glue to lock them down where vibration would shake them loose, along with a tether for the cradle. Those are the details you notice three winters in, not on day one.

The U-bolt base fits round rails from a half inch to 1.25 inches, so it goes on more than handlebars. Riders put these on crash bars, mirror stems and roll cages. If your bars are crowded with switches and levers, move the whole assembly somewhere with room and you can still reach it. Cycle World's reviewers suggest getting off the bar center anyway to cut wind-driven shaking.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It's bulky, and it looks it. The X-Grip's four arms sit in front of your screen and clip the corners of a map. On a sportbike where you're tucked in, the short arm and cradle add more visual clutter than a slim case mount does.

The grip is a pressure grip, too. Consumer Reports points out that clamps holding a phone by its edges concentrate stress in a way case-based systems don't, which can wear on a phone frame over years. And unlike a twist-lock case, a hard enough hit can pop a phone out of a spring cradle.

RAM covers this mount under its lifetime warranty.

Most inexpensive clamps hand you a rigid plastic cradle and call it done. This one puts four anti-shock absorbers between your phone and the bar. Kemimoto rates them at over 90% vibration damping, and owners riding big touring cruisers report their phones staying planted at highway speed. For a short commute or a Sunday ride, that covers most of what a premium dampener buys you.

One-handed use is where cheap mounts usually fall apart, and this one holds up. You set the width once with a knob, and after that the phone drops in and comes out without fiddling. If you deliver food and mount and unmount forty times a shift, you'll feel the difference. The dual ball joint spins a full 360 degrees, so you can flip between portrait and landscape at a light.

Size is the quiet advantage. It swallows phones from 4.7 to 7.2 inches, which covers an Ultra-class Android in a case, and owners with oversized phones say it's one of the few holders that actually closes around them. The body is PA66 nylon with 30% glass fill, the kind of plastic used for under-hood car parts. It won't go brittle in a garage in July.

The cradle also leaves your rear camera clear, and Kemimoto designed the arm so you can bolt an action camera straight on. That matters more than it sounds. Plenty of clamps block the lens, so if you like recording a canyon run you either buy a second mount or give up the shot.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It's a clamp, so it grips your phone by the edges. That brings the same pressure-point concern as any universal cradle, and a hard enough hit can shake a phone loose in a way a twist-lock case won't. Kemimoto adds an anti-theft feature, but a clamp is never as tamper-resistant as a locking case system.

Bar fit stops at 1.26 inches, so fat-bar cruisers and adventure bikes with oversized clamps are out. And tough as the glass-filled nylon is, it doesn't feel like machined aluminum in your hand. You're trading finish for function.

Two ways of holding beat one, especially off pavement. The magnet gets your phone onto the mount in about a second. The mechanical lock then keeps it there. webBikeWorld's durability work found Rokform's magnetic mounts held through sustained washboard vibration and hard braking, and Ultimate Motorcycling's long-term testing showed strong neodymium magnets surviving pothole impacts that shed phones from weaker generic mounts.

Aluminum is the right material for something bolted to a bike and left outside. Rokform uses aircraft-grade aluminum that won't degrade in sunlight the way molded plastic does, and it installs in minutes with the included tool. The arm swings from -20 to +55 degrees and rotates a full circle. Set it upright and you can film the road ahead instead of reading a map.

This is the pick for dual-sport and adventure riders. If your commute ends on a fire road, or a good weekend means gravel and ruts, a magnet backed by a mechanical lock is more reassuring than a spring cradle. It's compact too, so it doesn't take over your bars. Bar fit runs from 7/8 inch all the way to 1.5 inches, which covers fat-bar setups the other mounts here miss.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

You need a Rokform Rugged or Crystal twist-lock case, or the universal adapter, and none of them come in the box. That's another purchase on top of an already premium mount. Budget for it before you commit to the system.

There's no dedicated vibration dampener in this kit either, so on a hard-vibrating twin you're leaning on the arm and case to absorb what they can. At roughly 13 ounces it's also one of the heavier arms here, and the hardware is built for round handlebars specifically. Mirror-stem or fork-stem placement needs different parts.

Rokform backs this mount with a two-year warranty.