I finally found a magnetic phone grip I never want to remove

I told myself I wouldn’t buy an OhSnap accessory for my phone. Every one I’d tested was nice, but felt overpriced and slightly flawed. After I weighed in on the $40 Snap Grip 5 last year, I wound up sticking with my $25 Syncwire instead. But OhSnap’s $50 Snap Grip Stand finally got me. To have a truly useful vertical stand and grip always attached to my phone, ready at a moment’s notice? Heck yes.

I started testing the Snap Grip Stand months ago, and soon discovered that I never took it off. So I bought my own.

It’s thin — 3.7mm, so it slips effortlessly into my pocket without making an extra indent in my pants. It’s got a double-sided magnetic ring, like the previous gen, so it not only sticks to your magnet ring phone, it can stick flat against a fridge or gym equipment or my garage cabinets. It even lets some wireless charging through.

Like the previous gen, the magnets hold my phone tightly, and the grip part is one of the most versatile I’ve tried. The clever interlocking joints can fit between two of your fingers loosely like a PopSocket, or you can put a finger through the joints for a very secure grip.

The whole disc spins freely (though still with a bit of scraping noise) to rotate to any angle you like.

But unlike the previous gen, the Stand has a stand unlike most other magnet grips on the market. The entire magnet ring is now encircled by a thinner fold-out ring on a hinged arm. Pull it down, and it effortlessly props up my phone in its normal vertical orientation. Most rival stands barely prop a phone, and even then they don’t deploy as fast. Here, there’s no need to take off the stand, or rotate it and lock a tab in place like OhSnap’s previous grips — pull out, plop phone on surface, done.

It’s not the only stand with such a design. The $17 Gornergrat Grat 5 has a similar stand and costs far less. But I tried one and found I don’t like its elastic strap, which feels loose and thus less secure around my fingers.

OhSnap makes use of the extra vertical arm space to keep the stand from rotating when you don’t want it to: it’s got a extra vertical magnet in there to match Apple’s MagSafe pattern, as well as some grippy clear plastic material to provide friction.

And I’m happy to say the aluminum gadget doesn’t seem to have any other unwanted coatings: I wasn’t a fan of the adhesive on the Snap Grip 4, or the soft-touch coating that started to peel when I tested the Snap Grip 5. Here, it appears to be bare anodized metal that looks and feels great.

Right now, I can only think of three things that’d make it better: a lower price, magnets in the stand’s ring (rather than the main ring) so I can use the magnets and the stand at the same time, and maybe a better way to open the grip one-handed.

I do like how Tango’s spring-loaded grip can pop open when you press it. But I tried a Tango too, and I don’t like the way that spring feels between my fingers, pushing them apart too much.