David Gilson

Review: Let your camera phone stand on its own three feet!

Apr 26

Reviews David 6 Comments
camera, clamp, desktop, holder, mobile, phone, tripod

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Buffer			For bloggers, like me, who look at a lot of gadgets, sooner or later the need to post a video arises. Making video with mobile phones is becoming more of...

For bloggers, like me, who look at a lot of gadgets, sooner or later the need to post a video arises. Making video with mobile phones is becoming more of a viable option as camera phones continually improve. However, mobile phones don’t have a standard tripod mount. There used to be the Nokia DT-22 tripod for phones, although that was discontinued some time ago. Thankfully, a new mobile phone tripod holder has hit the market and I’ve been sent one for review from MobileFun.co.uk (Thanks!).

Desktop tripod with Nokia N97

The tripod comes in two parts, the actual tripod and a clamp that holds your phone. The clamp is attached to the tripod via a standard tripod screw, which makes this package even more useful. Thanks to its standard fitting, the clamp could be fitted to any other tripod, and any other point-and-shoot camera could be fitted to the tripod too. I wouldn’t recommend anything larger, because a long lens could easily tip the little tripod over.

Tripod & phone clamp

The tripod section is quite a simple affair. The legs are attached via a screw-hinge and each extends to a little over 150% length. The mounting platform is fixed to the tripod body by a ball joint which can be firmly locked into place by a small thumb-screw. You may have seen desktop tripods like this before. In fact, I’ve had tripods like this that cost as little as £0.69, although it shouldn’t come as a surprise to know that (at that price) they all soon broke. In the short time that I’ve had this tripod, it seems to be constructed of more durable materials. I’ll be sure to update this post if the worst happens though!

The phone clamp is made of strong plastic. The horizontal section that will support the phone’s weight has a ratcheting arm to accommodate various sizes of phone, and has foam rubber pads to prevent the phone sliding out. The actual clamp section is a spring loaded arm, perpendicular to the base. The spring is quite strong so you have to get your phone into the vertical arm at an angle, and then pull the horizontal arm down against the phone until the clamp extends enough for you to swing the camera into place.

N97 Mini fitted into the tripod clamp

The clamp is best suited to modern phones that require you to turn the phone into landscape orientation for taking pictures. Despite this, I tested with two older phones which both had cameras in portrait orientation, a Sony Ericsson K700i and a Nokia E51 . It is possible to arrange the clamp, via the ball joint, to sit at a 90 degree angle. However, the stability of the tripod is compromised and the range of angles that the clamp can be locked into is reduced.

Holding a vertically aligned camera phone

I also tested a Nokia E55, which does have a landscape orientated camera, but is a non-typical camera phone. There isn’t quite enough space between the volume/zoom keys and the camera shutter key, which means the spring loaded arm can easily push the keys down with unintended results. There is a sweet spot where the keys are overlapped by the clamp but not fully depressed.

E55 side keys partially covered

I tested more typical camera phones too, which were Nokia’s 5530, N97, and N97 mini. All of these were a much better fit, and are clearly the type of phone this product is designed for. The only niggle was that all of these phones have a screen-lock slider on the left side. The foam rubber grips the slider and locks the screen if you try to slide the camera along inside the clamp.

Nokia 5530 on the tripod

The tripod costs £15 (UKP). I hope that the price-tag is in part due to the tripod being made with better materials than past desktop tripods I’ve used, but the package is worth picking up for the clamp alone. If you want to regularly take hands-free video or stills with your camera phone, then this is a super useful bit of kit. If you’d like to try one out for yourself, you can pick them up from here.

Related links

• Mobile Phone Tripod Holder [MobileFun.co.uk]
• Nokia Accessories [MobileFun.co.uk]
• My camera phone tripod photo-review [Flickr]
• Steve Litchfield’s mobile phone tripod holder review [All About Symbian]
• Tim Salmon’s mobile phone tripod holder review [Tim Salmon's World]

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