The Trump phone has finally commenced rolling out to buyers in the US. But, for a family known for their high-profile business dealings, this sure seems like a bad one.
Following long delays and reports of cancellation, the ‘Trump Mobile T1 Phone’ (to give it its full name) is real, but there’s no evidence anyone other than journalists and content creators has actually got their hands on one.
Repair experts iFixit got in touch with NBC to source theirs, before promptly tearing it apart. The process confirmed what had been widely expected: it’s basically a dupe of the HTC U24 Pro.
For context, that device was made by the Taiwanese company using Chinese parts. Allegedly, the T1 is “assembled” in the US, though its slightly larger battery is supposedly made in the Philippines.
The only other differences are a slightly different chipset (unlikely to deliver a major performance boost) and inconsequential tweaks to the speaker grille and flash, plus the design, er, refresh. Yes, the flag decal on the back of the phone is missing two of its 13 stripes, and it comes preinstalled with the president’s Truth Social app.
What we do here at Tech Advisor is review mobile phones; as it turns out, we did just that with the HTC U24 Pro at the time of its launch. Based purely on our own experience with that phone, it seems quite clear that the Trump Phone T1 isn’t quite the value proposition its backers claim. Here’s why.
It’s already out of date
In the fast-moving world of mobile technology, the HTC U24 Pro looks more than a little creaky.
The phone that forms the basis of the Trump Phone T1 arrived on the market on 12 June 2024 – almost two years ago.
Even considering the fact that the Trump Phone T1 is arriving nine months later than expected, this dates the phone quite badly.
Martyn Casserly
It wasn’t a stellar performer, even at the time
Few two-year-old phones seem all that great when we compare them with what’s available today. However, it’s instructive to note that we weren’t massively impressed with the HTC U24 Pro at the time of its launch.
In his 2.5 stars out of 5 review (a big old ouch in itself), TA contributor Martyn Casserly found the phone to be “hard to recommend” over its mid-range rivals.
That’s the other thing. The HTC U24 Pro was far from a flagship performer at the time, with a decidedly humble Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 processor that fell well short of contemporaries such as the OnePlus Nord 4 and the Google Pixel 8a.
In the interest of balance, we quite liked the HTC U24 Pro’s design, its cameras, and its provision of ample storage. Also, the sheer number of bugs that we noted at launch (which undoubtedly brought that score down) shouldn’t necessarily be held against the Trump Phone T1 two years on.
But the fact remains, the phone that formed the basis of the Trump Phone T1 simply doesn’t stand up to the best $499 phones of today. Talking of which…
It’s being sold at more or less the same price
As we just noted, the Trump Phone T1 is being sold for $499. That poses a slight problem for us when it comes to assessing value, as the HTC U24 Pro was never officially launched into the US market.
However, it seems that you could import the phone through various outlets. You can still find it listed on Walmart, where it’s being sold at $549.99. This is for the higher 512GB variant, it should be noted.
It’s fair to conclude, then, that the Trump Phone T1 is being launched at the same kind of price as the HTC U24 Pro was in mid-2024.
We’ve given Google a bit of a hard time for essentially re-releasing a year-old phone in the Pixel 10a. The company dressed up the (really very good) Pixel 9a and sold it at exactly the same price.
You don’t need to be a graduate of Trump University to guess what we think of this attempt to do the same thing with a rather ropey two-year-old phone.
