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The best tripod for iPhones and other smartphones
By Erin Lodi and Signe Brewster This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and Engadget may earn affiliate commission. Read the full guide to tripods for iPhones and other smartphones. If you've ever compared who has the longest arms to take a group selfie or struggled to keep your smartphone stable while shooting video, a tripod and mount made specifically for phones might make your life easier. We recommend using the Joby GorillaPod 1K Kit and the Square Jellyfish Metal Spring Tripod Mount together as the best smartphone tripod and mount, after testing dozens of options along the trails of the Pacific Northwest, in the urban forests of Minnesota, and on the streets of Seattle. If you use your smartphone for low-light photography, time-lapses, selfies, or slow-motion video—or if you just like putting your phone in places that you can't easily reach by hand—this pair holds any smartphone steady at any angle, yet the GorillaPod and Square Jellyfish combo is still small enough to toss into your shoulder bag. Joby's GorillaPod 1K Kit is stronger and more flexible than anything else out there for the price. The ball-head mount moves smoothly and the long, articulated legs wrap around most anything, such as a tree branch or street signpost. At 10.24 inches from mount to foot, it's about 4 inches longer than most of the no-name, cheaper options; this gives it more reach for selfies and can help it wrap around thicker branches and posts. Additionally, its 2.2-pound weight limit is enough to support most compact cameras and even some mirrorless setups. Unlike other models we looked at, the Square Jellyfish mount can hold a large smartphone stable in portrait or landscape orientation even without a stand. As small as a set of keys, the Square Jellyfish mount easily holds an iPhone 11 Pro Max and is stable enough to stand on its own in both vertical and horizontal orientations even without a tripod. Just make sure you get the metal mount version because there are user reports of the threads, which let you attach the mount to any standard tripod screw, wearing out over time on the cheaper plastic one. We chose to pair the Square Jellyfish with the GorillaPod 1K Kit because it is a more secure mount than the one that Joby pairs with its other kits. If you need both a selfie stick and a tripod, the Yoozon Selfie Stick is an affordable two-in-one that quickly transforms from a telescoping arm extender to a tabletop tripod. It can't grip a tree branch or street sign like the GorillaPod 1K, but it does come with a stick-of-gum-sized Bluetooth trigger—pair it with your phone and press its button to grab shots from afar.
Square Jellyfish Tablet Tripod Mount and Jelly Long Legs Tripod
Last week at Macworld/iWorld 2014 I had the opportunity to be a speaker, doing a presentation on Friday afternoon about Siri and The Internet of Things. One of the benefits of being a speaker at this conference is a "swag bag" full of goodies from companies that are sponsoring the expo, and it's always a little bit like Christmas opening up the bag. This year I was quite happy to see some items from Square Jellyfish, and immediately put two of their products to work helping me out at the show. The Tablet Tripod Mount (US$29.99, currently on sale on Amazon.com for $17.95) and Jelly Long Legs Tripod ($19.99, currently on sale on Amazon.com for $9.95) were incredibly useful tools while I was shooting the short videos you've seen over the past five days. First, the Tablet Tripod Mount works perfectly with the iPad mini and any other tablet with a screen size up to 7 inches. For smartphone work, the company also sells the Spring Tripod Mount (US$24.99, currently on sale at Amazon.com for $14.95) that holds your iPhone and provides a threaded mount for installation on a tripod. The mount has a spring-loaded "jaw" that grips your iPad mini on the "skinny side", and it weighs just a scant 2.6 ounces (73.7 grams). On the back is a knurled knob for tightening or loosening the mount so that you can tilt it into portrait or landscape orientation. In the bottom of the "stand" piece of the mount is a threaded hole that works perfectly with the company's Jelly Long Legs Tripod. The Jelly Long Legs Tripod has legs that extend out quite a ways to ensure that your iPad mini will be standing straight and tall without any chance of falling over. Those legs curve a little bit, so you can also collapse them down and they become a comfortable hand grip. That's what I ended up using the mount and tripod for during Macworld/iWorld -- i was using the amazing Vizzywig app and my iPad mini to shoot and edit short product videos on the show floor, instead of using a monopod and DSLR as I have in past years. The Jelly Long Legs only weighs .7 ounces (19.8 grams), so the complete mount and "hand grip" tripod weighed just 3.3 ounces (93.5 grams). The iPad mini doesn't weigh all that much either, so this was a fun and fast way to shoot video for TUAW. If I have one concern about the Square Jellyfish products, it has to do with durability -- I just don't have enough long-term experience with these products to know how long they'll last. When you consider that you can get the entire ball of wax -- mount and tripod -- for just less than $28, you not only have a flexible and lightweight solution, but one that's affordable as well. I plan on using this for my future filming needs; now I just need to find a good directional microphone to mount on the iPad mini and I'm ready to film my next feature film... Rating: 3-1/2 stars out of 4 stars possible
