Driving with your cell phone in your hands is dangerous for obvious reasons. I learned to drive watching my grand parents drive. They drove with manners and attention to detail, both hands on the wheel most of the time. The first thing you should think about when driving with that cell phone sitting in your lap is where it is going to go when your car stops suddenly in the event of an accident. Go to the AAA of California website or Consumer Reports and watch some crash videos and imagine your device in a crash after it has bounced off another occupants head.
Even sitting on a seat or the dash is not good enough and will still become a projectile. There are a lot of solutions that I feel provide a false sense of security, especially those with suction cup mounts. The Factory OEM model from Samsung for the Galaxy S2 line was awesome, except for this particular issue. The suction cup only worked when wet with water. No, I didn’t like it and yes, I did think about it. It would slowly loosen and pop off at the most random inopportune time while driving. So, I stopped using it and even though I paid less then $20 for it shipped from AT&T, I felt like I wasted money because I did. So when I upgraded to the Galaxy Note, I began looking for a universal mount so that I would not have to buy another one should I decide or need to upgrade to the Note 2. Most Universal mounts are designed to stick to the windshield and or the vents. It is illegal to attach anything to the window in California, technically.
Since I glued a plastic plate to my dash for the other mount, I decided to try and find a universal one with a way I could reuse this pad. If the suction cup does not work on this one, I am going to silicone it to the plate, solving the problem. The mount I chose is a unique design and I need to check and ensure it will grip the device even when stopped suddenly. The idea of the airbag smacking me in the face scares me enough without think that the cell phone might decide to bounce off of something and clock me in the side of the head not protected by side curtain airbags.
The “Universal Clip-on Car Windshield Mount Holder” caught my eye when I found it being listed for another device. I asked the seller if it would be able to hold the Note. The seller confirmed by size how wide it would open, so I ordered it on November 11th. On November 12th I got an email saying that my item had shipped and was on it’s way.
The mount arrived on the morning of November 27th. It arrived wraped in part of a plastic modeled protective package in a manila brown bubble-wrap padded envelope. Although the packaging was a little less then I would have used, the item arrived in flawless condition. The first thing I noticed was that the suction cup used for the mount is a different kind of material then all of the other unites I have encountered.
When I was a kid, there were these slimy, sticky insects that when thrown would stick to the surface and if the octopus one landed right it would walk down the window or surface. It’s sort of like sticky Jello except that its solid and stronger then that. All doubts about it sticking well went out the window the first time I affixed it to the disc on the dashboard. I had no doubt about it falling off during the drive to pick my daughter up from school or the other appointment I drove to today. It placed the device within reach and provided a perfect view of the screen for navigation when necessary.
Before I mounted it in the car, I held the base of the mount and shook it violently up and down with the front of the phone facing my lap. I easily shook it harder then it would have received in the average accident and the phone did not wobble or fall loose. Understanding how Physics works, this is very important to me since I already have a rational fear about any introductions between my face and the airbag but the common sense to realize that whatever the Airbag does will be far more preferably to being in the same situation without an airbag. 
The pictures above should be self-explanatory. They are, of course, my N-7000 in the black soft Gel Case in the clamps of the mount. It would also be large enough to hold my N-7000 in the External Battery Case that I have for it, so overall this is an awesome mount. The second set of pictures are of my old Samsung Galaxy S2 Epic 4g Touch from Sprint. I took those pictures so that you could be judge the size and dimensions of the mount.
