Bracketron Universal Tablet Windshield Mount Review

As tablet makers added GPS, drivers ended up wanting to use them to find their way around town. The Bracketron Universal Tablet Windshield Mount holds a tablet in place in the car. The mount suctions to a windshield or vehicle dash and clasps onto the edges of any tablet measuring 4.5″ to 7.75″ by 5.5″ to 11.” It works with the Apple iPad or iPad mini, Nexus 7, Samsung Galaxy Tab or Kindle Fire, to name a few.

We tested the Bracketron Universal Tablet Windshield Mount to see if would hold an iPad mini in place while driving around for about a week. Can it hold the tablet, keep it from dropping and present the tablet in a useful location in the car?

Bracketron Universal Tablet Windshield Mount Build Quality

We found that Bracketron thought of every potential problem when designing the Bracketron Universal Tablet Windshield Mount ($39.95 direct). Most vehicle mounts fail in of a few ways:

• Suction cups falls off to easily
• Clasps don’t hug the device
• Pressure points come loose

The Bracketron Universal Tablet Windshield Mount passed the test in the first two ways. The suction grabs hold of the windshield when installed properly. Where we live we didn’t experience heat or cold, which is when most suction cups fall off, so we can’t promise the Bracketron Universal Tablet Windshield Mount won’t fail then.

The clasps grab hold of the iPad well enough to keep it in place. We wish it would grab the four corners while in landscape mode instead of just the side on one end.

The Bracketron Universal Tablet Windshield Mount has five different adjustment points. They all worked to keep the tablet secure and at the proper angle while we drove, except for the ball joint, which swivels up/down/left/right. It failed to hold the tablet in place when we hit a large bump. The tablet dropped forward. It stayed in the mount, but distracted us while driving for fear that the iPad mini might fall off and strike the gear shifter in the center of the screen, thus destroying the iPad.

The material feel sturdy, but we can’t imagine drivers of really nice vehicles wanting a contraption that looks like this in their beautiful car.

Bracketron Universal Tablet Windshield Mount Recommendations

It’s hard to recommend the Bracketron Universal Tablet Windshield Mount. It works most of the time, but the one failure keeps us from trusting our tablet in the mount. However, we’ve not seen a better solution yet. If any of our readers can recommend a better universal tablet mount, then we’d like to hear about it and test it.

Until we find a better solution we reluctantly recommend the Bracketron Universal Tablet Windshield Mount only if a user can’t find a place to rest their tablet in their car. We like seeing the iPad at eye level. The mount didn’t fall off the window and our tablet stayed in place, even when the swivel ball joint failed. So, give it a try if you really need a tablet mount.