Car Tech

The First Secure Car Emergency Kit packs in a lot, but still lacks some basic items.

The Everlit Roadside Assistance Kit may include some important tool, but it still misses out on key essentials.

Lianxin Roadside Emergency Kit is a good start to kitting out your car for an emergency, but it still lacks key essentials.

The Lifeline Premium Excursion Road Kit includes several driving must-haves, but falls short of a complete solution to roadside safety.

The Justin Case All Weather Ultimate Safety Kit lacks some essentials, but it still manages to be one of the best bags in the emergency kit business.

While small and inexpensive, the Always Prepared Roadside Emergency Kit still does away with a lot of tools many road warriors would consider essential.

The Motorola MA1 manages to remove wires from the Android Auto equation without tanking the performance.

Olixar Magnetic Windscreen & Dash Mount is a great, inexpensive option for fans of the simple magnetic phone holder.

The Innova 6100p has the power to help make an amateur mechanic feel more like a professional.

ThinkCar’s ThinkScan 609 is good at what it does, but is a nonstarter for those new to the intricacies of OBD scanners.

The Launch CRP 123 Professional feels like a gaming machine in the hand, yet can ferret out pesky problems with your car.

The Konnwei KW681 may not have some high-end features, but it’s small, light and can help when there’s not enough juice to start the car.

It’s big and bold, but the XTool Anyscan A30 goes beyond showing OBD fault codes and it is perfect for those with intermittent electrical problems.

The Nextbase 320XR makes for a great, no-frills dual camera solution, even if it lacks some advanced features.

With its compact design and ability to shoot 1080p full HD video the Nexar Beam GPS dash cam delivers great footage along with plug and play simplicity.

The Road Patrol Touch Duo features an OLED touchscreen, flexible rear camera placement and lane departure warning, but is it any good?

The Garmin DriveSmart 86 is a competent GPS device but doesn’t offer anything your phone doesn’t already do.

The Vantrue S1 shoots its shot with a 1080p dual camera system.

If you’re a PopGrip user the PopSockets PopMount 2 is the only phone holder you’re going to need — and it even works on your desk.

The Innova CarScan Inspector 5310 diagnostic scanner is cheap, easy to use and offers repair suggestions

The Topdon ArtiDiag500 is the best sub-$200 OBD-II scanner on the market

The Foxwell NT614 Elite OBD-II automotive diagnostic scanner squeezes a large screen into a small and easy-to-hold horizontal case. It can probe many car problems, but it can't run on battery power.

Easy to set up, the $120 BlueDriver Pro Scan Tool is a great Bluetooth-based scanner

The ThinkDiag is a dependable Bluetooth-based OBD-II scanner, but it comes with an annual subscription cost

The rare OBD-II automotive diagnostic scanner that has a multimeter electrical tester to track down an intermittent fault or check a light bulb, the Autel AutoLink AL539 does double duty.

Basic but effective at ferreting out common automotive problems, the SeekOne SK860 OBD-II diagnostic scanner shows live data and current faults and can tell you if your car will pass inspection.

Small, attractive, easy to hold and moderately priced, Ancel's BD310 OBD-II scanner operates both as a handheld unit or via Bluetooth and can act as an extra dashboard display.

Small, light, and inexpensive, the EDiag YA-101 OBD-II automotive scanner offers a wide array of diagnostic functions plus a battery-test sequence, firmware updates and a lifetime warranty.

Bosch's OBD 1300 automotive diagnostic scanner excels by including cables to connect with pre-1996 cars. But the scanner doesn't come with any instructions and can get heavy.

The YOSH magnetic mount is one of the most extreme car phone holders, but that isn’t a bad thing at all. In fact it does what it sets out to do pretty well.