Politics aside, the family of a sitting US president announcing a high-end phone with the slogan “proudly American” has turned heads, but not in a good way. Months of delays and a $100 deposit made the product seem borderline scammy, especially after Trump Mobile changed the fine print out of the blue, making it seem like delivery of the product was optional. Once the Trump T1 phones arrived, reactions ranged from negative to perplexed.
Although the website promised “American innovation” and a device emphasizing “care and precision,” it performed about as well as one would expect for a $499 phone. But that wasn’t the big problem. Everyone started wondering who makes the Trump T1 phone, and since the website doesn’t say anything substantial about the processor (“Snapdragon® Mobile Platform” isn’t very specific), the inner workings of the T1 have remained a mystery. Many reviewers were quick to notice a striking resemblance to the HTC U24, and a subsequent teardown by iFixit confirmed that it was indeed a facelifted version of the Taiwanese smartphone of 2024. This means that the device promoting “American values” is likely produced in China.
Where is the Trump T1 phone actually made?
You’re probably more familiar with HTC’s VR gadgets, such as the HTC Vive Focus Vision, so no shame if you didn’t know the company makes phones. For reference, HTC was once a popular Taiwan-based, Android-focused brand that lagged far behind its competitors, likely due to a deadly combination of misaligned marketing and a failure to adapt to the growing trend of large screens. Today, the company assembles its devices in Taiwan with one small problem: HTC not only sources its parts from China, but it’s also possible that the company manufactures some of its devices outside of its Taiwanese production facility.
Considering the Trump T1’s DNA is the HTC U24 Pro and the original came from China, there’s a good chance this gold-tinted reskin will follow the same pattern. It would be a logical approach, after all. The factory already has all the building blocks and production lines in place, so Occam’s Razor says the Trump T1 is made in Guangdong, China – American values, indeed.
What processor does the Trump T1 phone have?
The teardown not only ended the mystery of who makes the Trump T1, but also clarified everything about the phone’s controversial inner workings. Except for tiny differences like flash position and multi-chip package, the phones are identical. Given that the good people at iFixit have already demolished an HTC U24 Pro, they probably felt some heavy deja vu.
For starters, the screens match pixel for pixel and the motherboard is basically a clone. Naturally, since the boards are cut from the same cloth, the Trump T1’s processor was quickly identified as a Snapdragon 7 Gen 3. Funny enough, the “teardown team” also swapped the boards between the devices and learned that they were interchangeable.
In the end, the Trump T1, despite the lack of innovation, is technically better than its big brother on two fronts: price and battery. The former sports a 5,000mAh battery, while the latter has a rated capacity of 4,600mAh. The presidential smartphone is also about $100 cheaper than the HTC U24 Pro, so technically it’s not really something you can call a complete ripoff. Is it worth it? Probably not. There are affordable, high-quality Android phones that offer better specs without any additional political baggage.
