Anker’s recently released 620 MagGo Phone Grip is one of those simple products that just does what it says it does. It’s not any sort of big, fancy deal. It’s just good. And what it does so well is help you mount, carry or prop up your MagSafe iPhone in lots of convenient places.
The small grip, which looks sort of like an oversized pretend wristwatch, is a good get for $20, too. The company sent me one to try out.
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Anker 620 MagGo Phone Grip
When the Anker 620 MagGo Phone Grip came out, I wrote about its release with interest. Though I gravitate to fancy audio equipment, any useful piece of kit offered at a low price will catch my eye. And this simple accessory, which can fit in your pocket or a bag when you don’t need it, is useful.
As I said in my news article, it has plenty of applications. That’s because it features a flexible magnetic band attached to the magnetic puck for iPhone. And the magnets in both seem strong. It sticks to itself and to metal objects to serve three main functions.
3 main uses: Mount, grip and stand
“You could stick your iPhone on a machine at the gym during a workout,” I wrote, noting the accessory’s three main uses as mount, grip and stand. “Or slap it on the side of a fridge in the kitchen to look up a recipe. Or the flexible strap can simply wrap around your fingers or hand as a grip or be set on table as a stand for viewing your iPhone.”
Those examples proved to be true, although I confess I didn’t take it to the gym. I could, however, imagine someone following a complex routine on their iPhone with it mounted on a piece of metal equipment. Or taking a call while changing in the locker room with the handset stuck via the grip to a locker.
As a mount
Photo: David Snow/Cult of Mac
I used it to do some hands-free viewing of a recipe on a stainless steel refrigerator. My iPhone 13 Pro sat quite securely up there, with or without its leather MagSafe case. The handset held nicely in both portrait (vertical) or landscape (horizontal) orientations.
I didn’t have an adhesive magnetic ring to stick on my iPad Air (5th generation), like this one, to see if the MagGo would hold it. But I imagine that would work, too. It’s just a matter of checking whether an iPad would be slightly too heavy for it.
As a grip
Photo: David Snow/Cult of Mac
I tried the MagGo as a pure grip, meaning a way to hold the iPhone while using it. The magnetic band is pretty short, so it only wrapped easily around two of my fingers or my thumb. I couldn’t wrap it around my wrist and use it for some Dick Tracy action, looking at my phone like it was a massive two-way communicating wristwatch.
But as a simple grip, it does the job as an alternative to the way you normally hold your iPhone. Theoretically, you could also stick your iPhone to a metal pole with the magnetic grip, sort of like a makeshift selfie stick.
As a stand
Photo: David Snow/Cult of Mac
The grip also works as a simple, ultraportable iPhone stand. You can make the band part into a ring by sticking its ends together. Then stick the puck onto the iPhone and rest the handset at an angle on a table. And viola, it’s a little easier to watch a movie — or whatever hands-free use — at your desk or on an in-flight tray table.
One caveat here is that while many iPhone stands boast about how you can mount your phone in portrait or landscape orientation for different uses, MagGo doesn’t quite cut portrait mode. It’s fine in landscape.
But in portrait, my iPhone would topple over, almost no matter how I tried to tweak the grip’s placement. In the end I could get a very shallow tilt that was only slightly better than the iPhone laying flat.
As noted, another good aspect of the grip is its price. You can pick up the Anker 620 MagGo Phone Grip at Amazon for $19.99 — and you should.
I actually spent some time looking around on Amazon for other products with the same triple-functionality — mount, grip and stand — in such a simple and affordable form, and I came up empty.
Where to buy: Amazon
Anker provided Cult of Mac with a review unit for this article. See our reviews policy, and check out other in-depth reviews of Apple-related items.
★★★★☆
Anker's new MagGo Phone Grip acts as a grip, mount or stand for you iPhone, allowing you to multitask with ease.
