• It’s a
  great conversation piece
• Dual
  ball mounts offer extensive adjustability
• Vice
  Grip allows easy adjustment/removal of cradle &
  PDA
• 
  Universal cradle is amazingly adjustable
• High
  quality and durable Powdercoat finish
• Easy
  to setup, or move between cars
• It
  just looks bizarre, gotta love it
• 
  Lifetime Warranty

SETUP

(all images link to higher resolution)

     The LobsterMount M3 Suction and
Universal cradle arrived fully assembled and ready to use. 
Installation consists of washing the windshield where you intend to
place the mount, and securing the suction cup in place by giving it a
good press where you want it and turning a cam which will secure the
mount in place.  The process is extremely easy.

    
Now that the suction base is where you want it,
you’ll want to adjust the angle and direction of the
mount, this consists of adjusting two ball mounts to
fit your needs.  The two ball mounts let you
adjust the angle of the main arm and the angle of
the cradle, used together they offer you a wide
range of adjustments that will likely meet most
needs.  Adjusting the unit was very simple and
intuitively obvious how it’s done.  There is
even an included wrench for this task.

    
The last thing that now needs to be done is to
adjust the Universal cradle to hold your PDA. 
The same wrench mentioned above can be used to
tighten or loosen the cradle to meet your specific
PDA’s size requirements.  If needed, you can
even move the arms to a different location, if for
example you wanted to leave your Voice Command
button on the side accessible while it’s in in the
cradle.  Again, this was easy to do and took
only minutes to have my PDA2K held securely in
place. 

    
Setup was very easy, and the flexibility of
adjustments allow the unit to go into many different
spaces with ease.  I was able to mount it in my
car and my truck with no issues, and even used it as
a vertical stand from a table with no issues. 
Compared with other vent mounts I’ve tried, this was
the easiest PDA mount for a car I’ve ever used. 
Setup is a snap.  I’ll describe each of the
components in more detail below.

PRODUCT FEATURES

    This product provides a very easy to use
PDA mount for you to use on any smooth surface. 
I tested it in my car on multiple road trips from
Boston to Toronto.  Let’s take a look at the
components of this somewhat creepy looking PDA/Phone
mount.

This is the LobsterMount M3
Suction with Universal cradle.

    Since this thing is
so unique, let’s look at each componenet
individually.  The components, starting from
the rightmost, are as follows: The Suction Base, the
Main Arm, and the Universal cradle.  We’ll
discuss each below.

The Suction
Base:

   
The Suction Base is the key to a successful mounting
and holding of your precious electronics.  This
base is composed of 4 parts; The Suction Cup itself,
a rotating Cam, Fingers and an offset Ball Base. 
These components work together to adhere the
LobsterMount to your windshield.  The suction
cup part is obvious and needs no explanation.

    
The next two items, the Fingers and the Cam work
together to help the suction cup stick securely. 
The Cam has three notches in it that when turned,
will pull up on the center of the Suction Cup, thus
creating a strong suction.  At the same time,
this Cam will push the Fingers down on the perimeter
of the Suction Cup.  The pressure on these
fingers from the Cam will make the Fingers splay out
in an effort to press down as well as out on the
suction cup.  This
helps the suction cup to maintain a very strong
suction and maintain it’s grip on your windshield.

    
Now that we’ve explained the basic workings, let’s
return to setup for a minute.  One important
item to remember when mounting the LobsterMount is
to position the rotating cam at it’s lowest setting
when initially pressing the suction cup on the
surface you want it to stick to.  This will
fully evacuate the air under the suction cup. 
Once this is done, the cam can be turned which will
tighten the mount’s adhesion and secure it in place. 
Well, that’s the theory anyway.  In practice…
it did exactly that, this mount really sucks! 
I mean that in the best of ways, it is a suction cup
afterall.  Ok, I’m starting to think that maybe these things can work. 
I tested this mount for close to a month for this
review, over 3000 miles, multiple road trips between
Boston and Toronto, over some very rough roads, and
in an sports car that lets you feel every little
pebble you go over.  No soft rides here. 
Not once did the mount come free, and not once did
it even seem like it was going to.  In fact,
when I tried to remove it, it fought back and
refused to budge.  If it didn’t have a tab on
the suction cup to help removal, it would likely
still be there, it’s grip is that strong.  I
told you it sucked.  I’m very impressed. 
And not to forget the last part, the offset ball
base.  This is essentially the connection point
for the main arm of the mount, and the use of a ball
enables lots of flexibility, more about that below.

The Lobster Claw
Arm
    
The next part of the system is the main arm, which looks like a large claw
and is a cast metal part with a smooth powdercoat
finish.  This section is in two pieces, a ball
clamp and the main arm itself.  The ball clamp
connects the base of the main arm to the suction base. 
The use of a ball socket and ball for this
connection enables a very wide degree of flexibility
in positioning of the main arm.  To adjust, simply loosen a bolt with the included wrench, position the
arm and retighten. 

     The main arm is a
custom vice grip.  Like other vice grips it is
adjusted by a twist mechanism at it’s base and
opens/closes with a lever (which sports a cool
lobster on it’s handle).  The jaws of this vice
grip are countoured for a ball and have rubber
inserts, so when the vice grip is
closed, it holds on to a ball and locks it in
position.  This would be to grip the ball base
of the Pedestal.

This is the pedestal mounted to
back of cradle.

The Pedestal
    
The Pedestal mounts to the back of the cradle, and
is used by the Main Arm to hold and position the
cradle. 
The base of the Pedestal is a ball, which fits into
the ball socket made by the jaws of the main arm. 
The use of the ball and socket connection here means
you have an extremely flexible mounting solution. 
You can rotate it, change viewing angle, turn it
sideways, etc….  Adjustments are easy with
the vice grip mechanism, just release the vice grip,
position as you want and lock the vice grip back in
place.  That’s it and you’re done.  Need
to reposition it?  No problem, just takes 2
seconds.  The vice grip holds onto it tightly
and keeps whatever position you need.  The pedestal is connected to the
Universal cradle with 4 bolts that are adjustable
using the included wrench.  If you don’t like
where the cradle is attached to the pedestal, you
can move it.  Mine came with the pedestal
mounted at the top of the cradle, so that the cradle
will hang from this mount, which is good for most PocketPC’s running in Portrait mode.  If
however, you prefer landscape mode, you could
reposition the pedestal to mount directly in the
middle of the cradle, for a more balanced sideways
mount.  Again, very flexible.

The Universal
cradle
    
The Universal cradle is what holds your valuable
electronics in place.  I’ve been told that it
looks like a bug, a spider, a crab and even a
lobster.  Whatever it looks like, it’s a little
creepy.  the cradle has 4 arms on the sides,
and stubby feet at the top and bottom (Top foot has
been removed and is not pictured above).  The
arms grip your PDA, while the stubby feet keep it
from sliding out the bottom or bouncing out the top. 
I’ve already mentioned that the flexibility of this
mounting system in other areas, now it gets even
more so. 

The are the mounting holes
from front side of cradle.

…and
the mounting holes
from back side of cradle.

     The cradle is amazingly flexible,
each of the arms can be positioned indipendently, or
even removed if you wish.  How’s this for
flexibility:  Each of the arms can be mounted
into any of 8 slots on the cradle.  Each slot
has 3 mounting holes that the arm can be mounted to,
which will position the arm for thinner or wider
devices.  Once mounted into any of those 3
mounting holdes, the arm can then be slid in or out
for even finer adjustments.  keep in mind you
can do this for each arm independently. 

Amputation of Lobster
arm (No Lobster’s were harmed).

I’ll
give you an example of my custom setup.  I use
an i-mate PDA2K, and have reprogrammed the voice
record button on the top left side to be Voice
Command instead.  While driving, I want access
to this button, but one of the cradle arms is right on top
of it.  No problem, just remove that arm from
it’s current position, move it down and re-attach
it.  

View of the
left side, note exposed Voice Command Button.

View from the
right side.

     As you can
see, my PDA2K is still securely held in place,
but now the Voice Command button is freely
accessible.  My PDA2k is also fairly wide, so I
moved all the arms out to fit it, no problem. 
The arms have floating tabs that press on your PDA
to keep it securely in place, but do not crush it
like some other mounts I’ve tried.  Inserting
the PDA and removing it are both very simple.

     Everything about this
PDA mount speaks to thoughtful design.  Even
the top and bottom  feet on the cradle are well
thought out.  As you can see, the center of the
foot is recessed to allow you got get a power cable
through.  This keeps your PDA from sliding out
the bottom, and allows you to connect a power cord
as well. In my testing, I tested with and without
the bottom foot in place, and encountered no issues
with either setup.  My PDA was held very
securely just from the side arms and did not need
the bottom foot.  Still, it’s probably a good
idea to use it, just in case and I’ve now got it
installed again.  It’s overkill, but that’s
fitting with the rest of this design.

     As you can see, the
setup for my car is just about ideal.  The
positioning of the PDA is great, the viewing angle
is wonderful and I was able to mount the suction
base behind my mirror.  From the Driver’s seat,
you see little more than the PDA itself.  One
would think that with the weight of the Main Arm,
and a PDA hanging at the end of it that this mount
would move and wiggle a bit as you drove. 
That’s what I thought anyway, but it moves very very
little during driving, even over rough roads. 
All this adds up to one excellent PDA mount.

type="text/javascript"

src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">

HELP SUPPORT

    The LobsterMount M3 and
Universal Cradle were delivered with a simple
photo-copied instruction sheet.  The
instructions were clear and concise and told me
everything I needed to make use of the mount. 
I experienced no issues.

OPTIONS

    Different mounting
options are available as part of this system. 
In this review, we are reviewing the LobsterMount M3
Suction and the Universal Cradle.  In addition the
following options are available.

• Bolt on bases
  for a secure, more permanent mount
• Rail mount
  bases, to mount to tubes, handlebars, etc.

BUGS AND WISHES

   
This product worked so well, it’s hard to find bugs
and wishes.  Can being over engineered and
overbuilt be a bad thing?  That would really be
my only complaint.  The LobsterMount is heavy,
and in a pinch could be used as a weapon to defend
yourself.  Just seeing it, many would probably
run in fear.  The weight of the setup is very heavy, and made me nervous for the first couple of hours of my road trip, but in reality
I never had a problem and as time went on I became
more at ease with it. 
Much of the weight of the system is in the main arm portion, the vice grip. 
This section is large, strong and very heavy. 
I’d like to have a smaller and lighter version of
the Main Arm, at least as an option, keeping the
outstanding suction base and cradle.  That
would be my only real wish with this product. 

PURCHASING

   
You can find the LobsterMount M3 and Universal Cradle on
the
LobsterMount website.  Pricing for the
LobsterMount M3 Suction is listed as $58.85 and the
Universal Cradle is $21.99. 

PROS

• Strong
  suction mount
• Amazing adjustability
• Engineered for strength
• Different
  mounting options
• Ease of
  Use
• Lifetime
  warranty

CONS

• Cost
• Heavy
• No
  integrated holder for the adjustment wrench (easy to
  lose)

Value
Ease of Use
Features
Overall

What
do these ratings mean?

OVERALL IMPRESSION

    This is a fantastic product, and I’ve
been grinning ever since I’ve started using it. 
Not only does it do what it’s intended to do, but it
does so with ease and flexibility.  The quality
of the construction and components is outstanding,
from the silky smooth powdercoated arm to the
multitude of configurations available on the cradle. 
It may not be the cheapest option out there, but I
think it’s one of the best, and built to be with you
for a long time which will help offset the cost. 
Having a good mount has also expanded the use of my
PPC, so that makes that more valuable to me as well. 
In the past, while driving, I’ve used my PocketPC
Phone Edition for GPS navigation and phone calls,
but that was about it.  Now, I still do those,
but I also use it for playing tunes through my car
stereo or listening to a good audio book. 
Having the PDA so well positioned has made these
additional uses more appealing and I couldn’t be
happier.  The LobsterMount crew has combined
high quality components, engineering savvy, ease of
use and practicality into one of the best PDA mounts
available.  Ok Lobster, let’s ride.