Trump’s phone is not a big phone

Trump’s phone was not a big phone. Not when it was announced last Junein dodgy versions and with non-coherent paper. Or when Trump Mobile approved – just two weeks later – that it cannot be made in the US. Not even when the company unveiled the last phone, at first to me on video in February and then nationwide in April through a short trades and AI light.

Now retailing for $499, it’s long past its rough, ever-changing days. Fewer consumers own a phone, Seaside among them, although many are not visible.

It’s clear now that the T1 is a real phone, but that doesn’t mean it’s a big one. However, for the next thousand words or so, I will try to take it seriously.

A serious phone cannot look like this

The T1 phone is a curved slab of cheap gold plastic, a smartphone that resembles Oakleys curved sunglasses. The gold finish – very yellow in some light, although it shines and shimmers – is difficult in every way, with a sticky friction that makes it unpleasant to the touch. My phone arrived with a small dent in the top right corner.

The phone is thin, and light, but its highly curved water-based design feels dated. It also loses one of the best features of the design – the comfortable feel in the hand – due to the weird frame, which fits in my hand when I hold it.

Almost everything is about bad design. There is an American flag symbol, missing the symbol. The fact that “Trump Mobile” appears on the background twice, in two different styles and two different fonts. Or the camera part, where the three lenses are separated by different angles.

There and things to like. The 3.5mm headphone jack will have its own fan, as will the microSD card slot inside the phone, or the phone ships with a case, charger, and USB cable. These are things that some kind of Android fan has been lamenting the absence of for years.

I, fortunately, am more than happy to review a phone with a backlight, a true joy that I thought we had lost forever. It’s a picture of a better world, which I didn’t expect from Trump Mobile of all companies. But like the folding screen, even these receptions show that this is an old, old, single phone. based on HTC’s previous design which already felt like a return two years ago.

The main phone may work outside the US

I live in the UK, which means I can only have a Trump phone outside of North America. It won’t hold any signal stronger than 2G, meaning I can use texts and calls but not data. How can I know from digging through T1’s FCC certification documentsthe phone is not compatible with the social networks that are widely used in Europe.

The T1 phone is not sold in Europe, and the misshapen flag makes its market clear. But even Americans go on vacation from time to time. From my experience, it seems unlikely that the T1 will work anywhere in Europe and probably not anywhere in the world outside of North America.

A large phone can use more than a small device

At first glance, the T1 paper may seem surprising enough: a 120Hz OLED screen, a 5,000mAh battery, a triple rear camera with 50-megapixel sensors.

But the truth is that you can find a similar Android phone for about $200 and there are better phones sold at this price. Materials such as these are cheap and readily available, something that has started to change because of this persistent memory problem. Here, ironically, the T1 is specified generously: 512GB of storage and 12GB of RAM come as standard. These, along with wireless charging, are the only features that stand out on this site.

Despite all that RAM, and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset, the T1 is often sluggish. Sometimes it stutters when switching apps or starting animations, making even basic apps like Duolingo frustrating to use. This hardware is not specified, but it should be more capable than this. I just think Trump Mobile didn’t do the kind of software and firmware optimization that other manufacturers do, hindering the phone from the start.

I think the failure of the camera is for the same reasons. Three rear lenses and one selfie camera take basic, functional photos in good light – except for the 8-megapixel ultrawide, which is equally poor.

Some phone manufacturers spend millions improving their image pipelines, and no work is in sight yet. Daytime images are crisp and full, night shots are noisy, and the telephoto shows no signs of electronic stabilization, making it shaky and unstable. Incidentally, by default every shot is overlaid with a small T1 watermark – if anyone deserves it want taking credit for these pictures.

A larger phone could have put more effort into its software

When Trump’s phone was about to be launched, the general consensus was that it would be a mess, full of spyware, crypto software, and MAGA experiences, putting the President’s face front and center.

The truth is easy to understand. It runs Android – two-year-old Android 15, to be exact – with no updates at all. This is, in fact, as close to what geeks call “stock” Android as you can get these days.

The only pre-installed apps that aren’t new are Truth Social, Trump’s social networking site, and Doctegrity, the telehealth platform that’s included with the $47.45 Trump Mobile phone. Beyond that you get one Trump Mobile wallpaper and image watermarks, and that’s it.

In a sense, that’s a good thing – I don’t mind the lack of bloatware at all. But there’s also no sign that Trump Mobile has the ability or intention to upgrade its phone software or offer anything more than the bare minimum.

Worryingly, Trump Mobile has not announced how long it will support the phone with software updates. When I spoke with the company’s executives in February, they seemed confused by my question about how many Android updates the phone would receive, though they insisted that customers would be “locked in to what’s available today.” Currently, this means the 2024 version of Android with the February 2026 security patch; I can’t wait for it to be updated soon.

A large company may try to do something about it

Ironically, the T1 phone isn’t that bad, but because it proves how hard it is to make a really bad phone these days. It’s easy to throw together a basic kit, stick Android on top, and call it a day. For better or worse, that’s more or less exactly what Trump Mobile has done. Between the simple software and long-lasting hardware, the T1 is a compelling phone for old Android fans, but Trump Mobile got it wrong.

This is not a great phone. It’s a marketing problem that got out of hand, a way to get attention and count subscribers to use the most expensive phones with the President’s name on them.

Trump Mobile doesn’t care about this phone. And after year to report on it which has led to this review, I’m happy to say: Neither should you.