I bought two of these for my wife's car and loved them so much I bought two more for my car! The vent clips work, but we prefer a dash-mounted suction cup to hold the phone a little higher without blocking the front screen. Both of our cars have legacy infotainment systems so it's really handy to have the driver's phone in a convenient place WHILE charging it so we can keep our maps visible on long drives. I have the ones with the blue light and they are really attractive during the day but are a bit brighter at night when you don't have your phone on the charger. The sides expand and contract on their own when powered: they expand when they don't detect a phone and shrink when they detect that the phone is on the charger. It also has small silver buttons on the side that expand/contract it. All in all, this is a great charging/phone holder!