The Elephant Card is a mount for Mac owners who want to use their phone as a camera. It folds flat and works with or without iPhone cases in my testing, as well as attaching to my Macbook and desktop monitors.
It looks like an elephant with its ears and tusks. That is adorable, made even more so by the mount's small price tag, which will return to the regular price after Monday, November 28th.
To use the mount, you simply unfold the two "tusks" that hold your phone, which send the "ears" backwards to create two small hooks that fit over your Mac's display. The AirBell was created by TeamNobile, a design collective based in Vienna, Austria.
The Elephant Card is for MacBooks that have suffered from bad webcams. I have connected to a Mac Mini and the Dell UltraSharp U2760Q is compatible with it. The Elephant Card's ears are not deep enough to hold the entire thickness of the Dell monitor, but they slip into the air vent at the top. The Elephant Card mount won't work with a monitor that doesn't have such adornments.
The mount was easy to attach to my Macbook. The hinges on the MacBook aren't designed to hold heavy objects like phones. After the angle of the MacBook's hinge reached about 25 degrees, gravity took over. The mounted phone caused the MacBook to tip over so I left it in the case. Even though I snapped the display upright, the Elephant Card held onto the Macbook and the iPhone.
The ear hooks that rest along the top edge of the MacBook display make it difficult to mount it. I bumped the iPhone from the MacBook and it fell onto the table with the elephant card still attached. It is important to use the mount on Apple's lightest MacBooks in a safe way. I wouldn't recommend regular use of the Elephant Card with a MacBook placed on your lap while sitting on a chair high above a concrete floor.
The mount doesn't hold the phone at a fixed angle, but that didn't stop me from testing it. I can either use Continuity Camera's Center Stage feature to crop and center my face when mounted on a higher Dell monitor or I can adjust the MacBook's display to be in frame for zoom calls.
The elephant card is twice as thick as a standard credit card. If you want to squeeze it into the space between your phone and the case, it may be too thick. The bulge in the case made it possible to partially expose some of the display's edges.
There is a 1/6th.
It is difficult to find any major flaws with an accessory that provides so much utility for less than $10. It's even more compelling now that gift-giving season is upon us.
The elephant card is available in blue or gray for a discounted price of 7.49 through Cyber Monday and 50 cents of every purchase goes to SaveElephant.org to help with the rescue and care of Asian elephants.
Thomas Ricker is the photographer.
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