When iFixit got its hands on the Trump Mobile T1 — a unit initially procured by NBC News — it ran a full teardown and found something that will not surprise many: the phone is nearly identical to HTC's 2024 U24 Pro.
The most telling test was swapping the T1's main circuit board directly into an HTC U24 Pro chassis. The phone powered on and booted without issue, displaying an HTC logo. The two devices share the same Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset, 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM, 512GB of storage, and even the same screw placements and anti-tamper sticker positions.
The differences are cosmetic and minor. The T1 sports a gold finish and small tweaks to the camera array placement and speaker grille hole pattern. It also carries a slightly larger 5,000mAh battery — versus 4,600mAh in the U24 Pro — though charging speed drops to 30W from the U24 Pro's 60W. Memory chips are from Micron rather than SK Hynix.
As for the supply chain, the T1's battery comes from the Philippines, while most other components originate in China. Assembly is handled through HTC's manufacturing partners.
Trump Mobile originally marketed the T1 as "made in the USA." That language was later revised to "American-proud design" and subsequently to "proudly assembled in the US" — which means a US-based team handles final assembly of around 10 components. iFixit concluded that the only place the T1 could realistically have been produced — given the brand's short existence and matched price point — is at factories with pre-existing tooling, pointing to HTC's established production lines.
The T1's $499 preorder price competes directly with the HTC U24 Pro (512GB), currently listed at $524.99 at Walmart. For buyers expecting a meaningfully distinct product from an American brand, the teardown suggests the gap between the two phones is mostly gold paint.
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