The new PopSockets grip is so skinny you’ll overlook it’s even there

If you had requested me every week in the past to suggest a thinner various to PopSockets’ magnetic telephone grips, I’d have instructed you to purchase the OhSnap Snap Grip 5. Ask me now and I’ll redirect you proper again to the corporate that accidentally invented the phone grip in 2012 when attempting to give you a greater technique to wrangle Apple EarPods. PopSockets’ new Low-Pro is its slimmest telephone grip but, and it’s not solely thinner than OhSnap’s newest, it’s additionally extra useful and extra snug to carry.

Available beginning at the moment completely via Apple in 4 colours (it is going to be out there from PopSockets’ online store and different retailers beginning on July twenty ninth), the $39.99 Low-Pro Grip is launching on the identical value because the Snap Grip 5. I’ve been a faithful fan of OhSnap’s grips for the previous few years and lately upgraded to the Grip 5, however after testing the PopSockets Low-Pro for only a week, I’m prepared to leap ship.

The final PopSockets grip I used was the Kick-Out Grip and Stand that debuted final 12 months and did a greater job than the OhSnap Grip 4 as a telephone stand that labored nicely in each portrait and panorama mode. But at 7mm thick when collapsed, I discovered the Kick-Out Grip would sometimes get snagged when slipping my telephone into my pocket. I’ve by no means had that drawback with both the two.5mm-thick Snap Grip 4 or the 3mm-thick Grip 5.

The new PopSockets Low-Pro falls someplace between OhSnap’s final two choices at 2.6mm, which the corporate compares to the thickness of a pair of dimes or a toothpick. It’s undoubtedly skinny, however you must look extremely near see the peak distinction when evaluating the Low-Pro and Snap Grip 5 aspect by aspect. If you have been going by contact alone the distinction in thickness is imperceivable.

Far extra noticeable is how the 2 grips really feel between your fingers while you’re holding your telephone. The Snap Grip 5 carries ahead a design that makes use of a set of interlocking versatile arms that connect the bottom of the grip to an extending disc. It’s a singular method that OhSnap has improved and strengthened since The Verge’s Victoria Song had a Snap 3 Pro break almost three years in the past. But whereas the sturdiness is best, the Snap Grip 5’s versatile arms nonetheless aren’t essentially the most snug. They’re not painful by any means, however utilizing the Snap Grip 5 has at all times felt to me like I’m sacrificing the consolation of a PopSockets grip for one thing extra svelte.

With the Low-Pro, you get the perfect of each worlds. Instead of plastic arms or the normal PopSockets design that contains a collapsing squishy cone, the Low-Pro makes use of what the corporate describes as a “one-piece polymer” enlargement layer connecting a pop-out disc to the grip’s base. It seems to be like a tube that’s been sliced filled with diamond-shaped holes to assist it collapse compactly, but it surely’s made out of a squishy materials that makes the Low-Pro really feel softer and extra snug to carry at any angle. My fingers sometimes get sore throughout extended one-handed doomscrolling periods utilizing the Snap Grip 5, however that hasn’t been a difficulty with the Low-Pro.

Both grips double as a telephone stand, however the Low-Pro does it higher. With the Snap Grip 5 you possibly can tuck one fringe of its extending disc right into a notch on the bottom and use it to prop your telephone up. But it’s restricted to only one angle, and it really works higher along with your telephone laying sideways than standing up vertically. Surrounding the bottom of the Low-Pro is a hinged steel ring that folds out at any angle, so it really works as a stand in both orientation. The base of the Low-Pro is a bit wider than the Snap Grip 5 consequently, however the measurement distinction is negligible.

There is a motive to nonetheless contemplate OhSnap’s Snap Grip 5 over PopSockets’ Low-Pro. Both equipment permit your telephone to stay to steel surfaces, magnetic mounts, and wi-fi chargers with the grips connected, however the magnets on the Snap Grip 5 are stronger than these within the Low-Pro. The Snap Grip 5 at all times remained securely connected to the again of my iPhone 16 Pro when eradicating it from a magnetic wi-fi charging stand, however the Low-Pro constantly remained behind caught to the stand.

If you frequently mount your telephone to magnetic equipment like this, resembling counting on a automotive mount to make use of your telephone as a GPS machine, there’s an excellent probability the Low-Pro might get incessantly left behind and forgotten. If you don’t, then PopSockets’ new Low-Pro Grip is a worthy various. It’s not the thinnest grip ever created, however PopSockets has improved on OhSnap’s design in a number of necessary areas that make a grip a tempting accent, even should you’re attempting to maintain your telephone as skinny as potential.

Photography by Andrew Liszewski / The Verge