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Almost a year after the launch of Trump Mobile and nine months after the Trump T1 Phone was supposed to reach customers, the golden phone bearing the President's name is finally here. Well, kind of, anyway, and the early verdict is... not great.
CNET and NBC News have both received T1 devices, with the former doing a more in-depth review of the phone's capabilities. However, we should point out that CNET claims their order was expedited by Trump Mobile, and as best as I can tell, no other outlets have been able to review the Trump T1 for themselves.
With NBC News not assessing the phone in great detail, it means the only strong impressions we currently have of the T1 come from Cnet's one hands-on review. That's worth bearing in mind, though it doesn't change the fact that the Trump T1 seems embarrassingly mediocre.
Trump T1 Phone: The Good
Software is apparently the stock version of Android, which means there's no specialist "TrumpOS" skin layered over the top. This means software updates should be fairly easy, though we don't know what kind of support the T1 will actually get. Bloatware is minimal, comprising the Truth Social and Doctegrity telemedicine apps — and yes, they can both be uninstalled.
The battery is also listed as having 5,000 mAh of capacity, which is always a fairly good sign for longevity. Stress-testing saw the battery drop by 10% after 45 minutes, and down by 22% after a three-hour YouTube binge. This isn't amazing battery performance, and means the T1 isn't going to land a place on our best phone battery life page, but it also isn't particularly bad battery life, either.
The 30W charging speed also isn't terrible, and a full recharge apparently takes around an hour. Oh, and there is a charging brick included, which means you can get those speeds right out of the box.
Trump Mobile has done more than make this phone, and the company is powered by the Florida-based Liberty Mobile mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). Liberty is powered by T-Mobile, which means you should get similar levels of coverage as you would with T-Mobile and other MVNOs that utilize its infrastructure. Call quality was nothing to write home about, but it also apparently wasn't that bad either.
There's also a 3.5mm headphone jack, which is a rarity these days, but something that I do dearly miss on flagship phones, and you get a basic transparent case in the box.
Trump T1 Phone: The Bad
The most striking thing about the T1 is its color, a gaudy shade of gold that CNET bluntly described as "giving dehydrated pee vibes." The review also likened the color scheme to Scrooge McDuck's golden coins, mustard, and a general "yellow."
It was also noted that the matte design is a fingerprint magnet, which is never a good look.
Performance is middling, though it's hard to compare considering Trump Mobile hasn't confirmed the chipset this device runs on. For $499, it isn't going to be running on the latest Snapdragon flagship, and performance is close to that of the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3. That said, the actual performance figures are weak compared to similarly-priced phones, like the Google Pixel 10a and the iPhone 17E.
Camera performance is middling, and CNET compared a bunch of shots to the Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus. Daytime shots came out fairly well, but the quality did tend to skew towards oversaturization and less true-to-life coloring. However, this apparently works in the camera's favor when you move to lower-light conditions. CNET also commented on the lack of sharpness with the zoom, which is described as passable but loses quality pretty quickly when you exceed 2x magnification. Selfies seem to automatically apply some sort of beautification filter without asking first.
The photos aren't bad, per se, but I get the distinct impression that you could get better quality from one of the best cheap phones that offers similar details for a similar price tag.
Oh, and it wouldn't be a Trump product if it didn't slap the brand everywhere it was possible. That means the camera applies a T1 watermark to photos by default, and while you can switch that off, it's something you shouldn't have to deal with, and I hate it when phone companies pull that sort of thing.
Made in the USA?
Back in June 2025, Trump Mobile claimed that the T1 would be "made in the U.S." That fits with the President's continual demands that tech companies bring more manufacturing jobs to the United States, even if that idea would be impossible to accomplish anytime in the immediate future.
Needless to say, Trump Mobile dropped the "made in the U.S." claim pretty quickly, and NBC notes that the delivered model is labeled as being "assembled" in the U.S. Apparently, the FCC is pretty strict about claiming your device is made in the United States, but saying it was assembled there is a different story. Your components could come from just about anywhere, as long as they were put together here.
Back in February, Trump Mobile told The Verge that the final assembly was happening in Florida, while the actual manufacturing is being handled by a "favored nation." Many have pointed out that the phone bears a striking resemblance to the HTC U-24 Pro, which is made in Taiwan. But Trump Mobile hasn't commented on this, and it's unclear what phone the T1 is based on.
The only point of elaboration is that the T1 has been designed with American values in mind, with an "American-proud design" and that it has been "shaped by American innovation."
This could mean just about anything, though the addition of the American flag stamped on the back of the phone certainly suggests some patriotic leanings — even though it has 11 stripes instead of 13. At least they got the number of stars right, I guess.
Bottom line
The main issues with the T1 are that there are so many unknowns. We don't know what kind of hardware this device runs on, which makes it harder to compare to similarly-priced phones, and the lack of clarification on software support is worrying. That's especially true when you remember that it runs on Android 15 and Trump Mobile's existing security woes.
It's clearly not a complete disaster based on what we've seen so far, and the phone does appear to have some positive qualities to it. Then again, when one of the more positive aspects of your phone is that it's not overloaded with bloatware and has a headphone jack, it doesn't paint a very good look for your device — especially when performance, appearance and camera quality are mediocre at best. This certainly isn't going to give the iPhone 18, or even the iPhone 18e, a run for its money.
No doubt we'll be hearing more as other T1 devices make their way out into the world. Sadly, we don't know when those will actually appear, but hopefully, the fact that these devices clearly exist means the eager customers won't have to wait long for their phones. Even if there are apparently just 30,000 of them.
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