Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: trumpmobile.com, Getty Images
Donald Trump’s merch drops are often hard to believe, in the sense that it’s difficult to accept that we live in a world where the president of the United States is selling things like gold sneakers, Bibles, and trading cards that come with cut-up bits of his mug-shot suit. But his company’s latest product release is hard to believe both figuratively and literally — in that it is an incredibly audacious grift, and there is no way that the product, exactly as described, will wind up in consumer’s hands.
The Trump Organization — which is owned by the president and run by eldest sons Eric and Donald Jr. — announced on Monday that it is launching a mobile network, Trump Mobile, and a Trump-branded phone, the T1. Much about Trump Mobile, a “bring your own phone” wireless plan, remains unclear (though obviously having the president’s company enter a space that is regulated by his appointees is a huge ethical issue).
The T1 smartphone is even harder to accept. It sounds like Trump mobile will just resell AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile network access for $47.45 a month, along with a few weird perks, like telehealth benefits and roadside assistance. But with the T1, the Trump Organization is promising to deliver a functioning piece of sophisticated technology by the fall. It’s difficult to picture that happening, as no one, including the Trumps, seems to know what this device looks like, and some of what they’re promising is impossible.
The new website TrumpMobile.com includes a single photo of the phone’s front and back along with some “key features.” It’s pretty clear that this isn’t an actual photo of the T1 prototype. If you look closely, the “fingerprint sensor” is a drawn-on gray circle speckled with some dots. It looks like a photo of an older model iPhone was Photoshopped to make the gold tone gaudier and sketched out where the Trump branding might go.
The whole website feels like it was thrown together by a high-school computer-science student pulling an all-nighter. Aside from the shoddy design, there are typos throughout. There’s a section of the website for “Phones,” and this model is referred to as the “T1 Phone 8002 (gold version).” This suggests there are other, not-gold versions, but at the moment, the T1 is the only Trump phone. The lone photo posted to the new Trump Mobile social-media feeds doesn’t even show the same mock-up; it appears to be a photo of a white iPhone with the Apple logo digitally swapped for some Trump branding.
The specs also mention a “5000mAh long life camera.” This is probably supposed to say “5000mAh long life battery.” But perhaps this device also magically grants its user “long life” … and an old-school headphone jack?
As the Verge’s David Pierce notes, it’s unclear what existing phone matches these specs:
There’s no processor listed, even though there’s a section for it on the site — and processors are pretty important! Even without that, as far as I can tell, there’s not a single phone currently on the market that matches these specs. (If you find one, tell me about it!) Some of them are fairly standard in the non-premium Android world: you can find phones from Asus and other brands with 6.78-inch screens matching the T1’s description, for instance, and 256GB of storage and a 5,000mAh battery are both relatively common.
The combination of the spec list and the image bears no resemblance to any phone I could find on the market.
Perhaps you’re thinking, Well, of course. The Trump Organization is making an all-new phone, right here in the U.S. of A.! That’s definitely what the Trump Organization wants consumers to think. The press release states that the phone is “proudly designed and built in the United States.” Don Jr. and Eric repeated this claim several times during a rollout event at Trump Tower. “Making phones in America,” Eric said. “It’s about time we bring products back to our great country, and it’s about time we disrupt this space.”
However, as you might have gleaned from all that “Liberation Day” chatter about $3,500 U.S.-made iPhones and millions of Americans “screwing in little screws,” this is ludicrous. Apple Insider notes that the T1 lists several parts that are not currently manufactured in the U.S.:
Clad in a gold-colored casing, the T1 is said to have a 6.8-inch Punch-Hole AMOLED display, with an under-screen fingerprint sensor and an “AI Face Unlock.”
All of these parts will need to be imported for the phone. There are no domestic AMOLED display manufacturers, and the VCSEL used for face unlock technologies is also produced overseas.
Apple Insider goes on to posit that the T1 may be a Chinese-made T-Mobile REVVL 7 Pro 5G, slapped in a new gold enclosure:
That smartphone is made by Wingtech, owned by the Chinese-owned manufacturer Luxshare. The T-Mobile version is believed to be built in Kiaxing, Wuxi, or Kunming, in China. The T1 appears to be a reskinned version of the REVVL 7 Pro 5G, in a new enclosure and with slightly moved around cameras. This smartphone normally costs $250 at full retail, and even goes down to $169 on sale like it is on Amazon right now.
For the Amazon price, you don’t get the gold-colored trim, of course.
Perhaps the final steps of the T1’s production process will take place in the U.S. But fully moving smartphone production to America would be a costly, yearslong process for Apple. So, is the Trump Organization, which has no technology experience, going to launch a truly American-made phone by September (or maybe August — the press release and the website list different release dates)?
I wouldn’t put my Official Trump Coins on it — but then, you can’t really put your Trump Coins on anything. The Trumps may peddle in the imaginary, but they only take cold, hard cash. And all sales are final.
