Anyone remember the “Jesus Phone“? It’s what we called the iPhone before (and a bit after) launch. It was that special, that important. Think of the Trump Mobile T1 phone as the antithesis of that. It’s a flagship that’s been promised but never delivered for almost a year and has now transmogrified into a gold-encrusted abomination of an Android 15 phone.
Oh, and you still can’t get it right now.
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New look, same delay
Now, though, we have a different Trump Mobile T1 phone. That’s right, the company quietly redesigned its site and did a sneaky switch on the phone. It’s gone from a brushed-gold phone with flat edges and a three-camera array that resembled the iPhone 16’s setup, to, well, something different.
The new T1 looks like it’s been dipped in copper-hued gold. It features retro-curved sides, and on the back is an ugly black and gold, capsule-shaped vertical camera array. The giant “T1” is gone, and the previously lightly etched American flag is now a deeply embossed emblem. Right below that is “Trump Mobile”.
From a spec point of view, this might be a better phone. It has a slightly larger screen (6.78in vs 6.7in) that refreshes at up to 120Hz. And instead of one 50MP camera and a 2MP macro, there are now three 50MP lenses (including a 2X telephoto). It also has a Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU, though the site does not specify which one.
Even so, the phone is still inexplicably running Android 15, even though we’re well into the Android 16 product cycle and this close to learning about Android 17.
But if I step back and take a look at this phone, I can honestly say, “blech.”
Ugly is in the eye of the beholder
Look, design and aesthetics are personal things. Your Corvette is my Edsel. Your Armani suit is my McDonald’s clown costume. There is, as they say, no accounting for taste. But that’s what this phone lacks: the taste and the class it so desperately desires.
Of course, people love Rose Gold phones, but a gold phone like this (even if it is a bit coppery) is garish. What’s worse is that the Trump T1 phone lacks modernity. It looks like a smartphone time-traveled from 2011 directly to this Trump Mobile website.
There is, of course, another chance to pre-order the phone. You put down $100, which Trump Mobile promises to apply toward the cost of the T1 phone when you get it. Stop laughing, I know. I can only imagine how those who did the first pre-order round feel right now.
Somehow, Trump Mobile has managed to never deliver its promised smartphone while still completely refashioning it, and then acts as if there’s nothing to see here except more awesomeness. The least they could’ve done is call it the Trump Mobile T2 phone. No consumer is that gullible, are they?
The phone, by the way, is still $499. It’s an okay price for a gold idol of a smartphone that will never be mistaken for a device worthy of a deity, prophet, or just the average American.
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lance.ulanoff@futurenet.com (Lance Ulanoff)
