Trump Mobile T1 Phone teardown reveals it's just a tweaked HTC phone
“They’ve rebadged it, you fool!”
👀 A recent iFixit teardown of the Trump Mobile T1 has revealed it’s a tweaked HTC U24 Pro
🤔 Both phones share the same SoC and case, although they source their memory and storage from different places
🆚 The T1 has a large battery, a different pattern for the speaker holes, and the flash is in a different position
🌎 It brings into question the phone’s claim of how American it really is
A recent teardown of the Trump Mobile T1 Phone has revealed it isn’t as original a design as was first suggested.
As per iFixit, the folks who disassemble electronics and provide DIY repair kits, it found that the Trump T1 is essentially a clone of the HTC U24 Pro, although with some cosmetic differences and a couple of components sourced from alternative vendors.
iFixit put the T1 under a CT scanner and compared it to a scan of the HTC U24 Pro, finding that the two phones look nearly identical. It also confirmed that the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 SoC and other internals were the same.
The T1 has some small differences, though, including a larger battery and a different pattern for the speaker holes. The storage and RAM on the Trump Mobile device are sourced from Micron, rather than SK Hynix on the HTC phone. The camera flash on the T1 is also in a different position, owing to a longer internal flex cable.
Otherwise, the T1 has a gold paint job and associated decals on the outside. The two phones are so similar that iFixit was able to run the HTC mainboard inside the T1 body, with it working without a hitch.
Made in America?
Questions have been raised about where the Trump Mobile handset is manufactured, considering that the brand had doubled down on its ‘Made in America’ claim last year, before the specs changed and the website was updated.
The phone’s box says it’s “proudly assembled in the USA”, with executives stating in a recent interview that the phone was mostly made in a favored partner nation, and the final 10 or so pieces assembled in a factory in Miami.
iFixit stated that it’s possible that Trump Mobile is importing the chassis and display as a pre-assembled unit, and then adding the other components in the USA.
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Reece Bithrey is a journalist with bylines for Trusted Reviews, Digital Foundry, PC Gamer, TechRadar and more. He also has his own blog, UNTITLED, and graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in International History and Politics in 2023.