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The highly anticipated Trump Mobile T1 Phone has finally started shipping to media outlets, nine months after its promised release window.
However, a comprehensive hardware teardown has exposed that the device is virtually identical to the HTC U24 Pro, a mid-range smartphone originally released in 2024.
Conducted by repair experts at iFixit using advanced X-ray imaging, the teardown confirms that the internal layouts and core specifications of both handsets match almost exactly. While Trump Mobile’s early marketing campaigns heavily implied that the device was an entirely original creation made in the USA, the physical evidence suggests otherwise.
Because HTC sold the majority of its smartphone division to Google several years ago, the Taiwanese firm relies on Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs) in China to design and manufacture its limited annual hardware catalogue.
Tech analysts conclude that Trump Mobile simply contracted the exact same Chinese factory, selecting the pre-existing U24 Pro blueprint straight out of an ODM product catalogue to minimise development costs.
While the Trump Mobile T1 is heavily marketed as possessing a “proudly American design,” iFixit’s findings reveal that it is functionally a phone designed and produced in China, with the vast majority of its core components sourced internationally.
Minor tweaks
Indeed, the physical differences between the two phones are purely superficial. The Trump T1 opts for a signature gold-coloured back panel, a slightly modified rear camera housing and an alternate hole pattern for the bottom speaker grille. Internally, the T1 swaps out the HTC variant’s SK Hynix memory for a Micron chip module, a minor difference most likely driven by tariff structures or component availability.
The only true functional difference lies in the battery setup. The Trump T1 features a larger 5,000mAh cell, but restricts fast-charging speeds to 30W. In contrast, the older HTC U24 Pro packs a 4,600mAh battery that supports much faster 60W charging. Both devices share the same mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 processor, 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.
Despite utilising two-year-old internal architecture, the Trump T1 retails at a slight premium of $499, whereas the equivalently specced HTC U24 Pro can still be sourced online for roughly $470.
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Chris Price
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