Trump's 'Made In the USA' Phone Is Just a Reskinned HTC U24 Pro (ifixit.com) 153
Longtime Slashdot reader necro81 writes: The heavily promoted, $499 T1 "Trump Phone" was originally said to be "Made in the USA" and ship in September 2025. Later, that was downgraded to "Assembled in the USA." Given the Trump Organization's lack of engineering or supply chain expertise, many assumed the "T1" would just be a private-label phone made by someone else. After a number of delays, the first phones are finally shipping.
iFixit has performed a teardown and concluded that the T1 is a just gold-painted 2024 HTC U24 Pro -- a device from a Taiwanese company, probably using mainland China design and supply chains. In collaboration with NBC News, the iFixit team examined both phones using CT scans, side-by-side teardowns, and even reassembled a working T1 using a U24 Pro main board. As for "assembled in the USA," that may be true, in the same sense that your phone's repairman can "assemble" a phone from a handful of subassemblies sourced from someone else. Or it may have been assembled in Guangdong, China like the other U24 Pros.
iFixit sums it up: "What you have is not an 'American-Proud Design,' but a phone designed in China, made in China, with the vast majority of parts sourced from China. I'm failing to find any stirring of American pride within me. I've certainly felt it before, so I can confirm that it is absent at this time." Quinn Nelson of Snazzy Labs on YouTube also published a comprehensive video of his experience ordering, unboxing, and tearing down the phone. "From pre-order emails landing in Gmail spam thanks to botched DMARC records, to paying for the $47.45 Trump Mobile 47 Plan over the phone, the entire buying experience was a disaster worthy of its own review," writes Nelson.
iFixit has performed a teardown and concluded that the T1 is a just gold-painted 2024 HTC U24 Pro -- a device from a Taiwanese company, probably using mainland China design and supply chains. In collaboration with NBC News, the iFixit team examined both phones using CT scans, side-by-side teardowns, and even reassembled a working T1 using a U24 Pro main board. As for "assembled in the USA," that may be true, in the same sense that your phone's repairman can "assemble" a phone from a handful of subassemblies sourced from someone else. Or it may have been assembled in Guangdong, China like the other U24 Pros.
iFixit sums it up: "What you have is not an 'American-Proud Design,' but a phone designed in China, made in China, with the vast majority of parts sourced from China. I'm failing to find any stirring of American pride within me. I've certainly felt it before, so I can confirm that it is absent at this time." Quinn Nelson of Snazzy Labs on YouTube also published a comprehensive video of his experience ordering, unboxing, and tearing down the phone. "From pre-order emails landing in Gmail spam thanks to botched DMARC records, to paying for the $47.45 Trump Mobile 47 Plan over the phone, the entire buying experience was a disaster worthy of its own review," writes Nelson.
Another con from the conman. Nothing new here. (Score:5, Insightful)
Orange man can do no bad though. Can't wait to watch the maga's come up with excuses this time. That's always popcorn material.
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I had a friend work in the US for a few years. Marine biologist, Miami iirc.
At some point in time he went for a road trip to search for the American Dream. Drove all across the US, from the east to the west, from the north to the south. Didn't find it, though. When he had almost made it back home, he stumbled upon a gay beach party in Florida. Had a blast. When he awoke on the deserted beach next morning, there he found a giant inflatable rainbow colored unicorn, and he recognized it for what it was. Took i
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My apologies, I think I just confused myself.
Re:Another con from the conman. Nothing new here. (Score:4, Insightful)
he stumbled upon a gay beach party in Florida
Aww, you broke my suspension of disbelief right there. If Florida ever did have gay beach parties, that's something DeSantis put the kibosh on.
I attended the most recent Gay Days at Disney World... it was... depressing. Seems like between the economy and people who do have the money just not wanting to spend it in Florida (can't say I blame them), the whole "Don't Say Gay" thing is sort of doing what it says on the side of the box.
Ironically, the current political climate also has caused a non-trivial drop in support for all things pride related, with the fallout being less (or none at all) made-in-China rainbow colored kitsch being sold at places like Target. I have mixed feelings about it. I never was much of a fan of rainbow capitalism, but the vanishing representation (even if it was just corporate marketing) comes across as a bit of a concession to homophobia.
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DeSantis and so many Republicans are against LGBT+ because when they see others who have "come out", it inspires them to drop their own facade and come out themselves. THAT is what makes Republicans uncomfortable, that they are living a lie. Those who know and accept who and what they are should have no problem with LGBT+, because sexual assaults by LGBT+ people are VERY VERY VERY rare.
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with the fallout being less (or none at all) made-in-China rainbow colored kitsch being sold at places like Target
Target went especially unwoke in an attempt to fight a conservative backlash against their pandering to the LGBTQetc community. They seem to be trying to ride it out, but their revenues continue to fall, so it's clearly a pretty shit plan.
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I don't shop there because they tried pandering to get customers back they being right wing douches and I stopped shopping there.
It's not a boycott. I just stopped forever. There are a lot of stores. Many of them hire executives smart enough, greedy enough, or ambitious enough to want everybody to shop there comfortably.
Apparently at some point somebody with a brain told them, "We're leaving money on the table" and they tried to revert-to-greed. But by then they were already in a suicide pact with the crazi
Re: Another con from the conman. Nothing new here. (Score:4, Interesting)
I find that an artifact of a gay party is a great embodiment of equality, liberation, and pursuit of happiness. And also, of material success for that matter, being able to afford a party is not something one should take for granted. So we have the very core ideas of the Dream represented here.
And the unicorn as described is a great embodiment of the growing disconnect between the promises and the reality of the American life.
Your post is a demnostration of that disconnect. If you think enjoying a gay party makes someone closeted, well there's still a way to go on the road of liberation, because you appear to be a bigot. And I can imagine a scenario where cleaning up beach trash would be stealing, but I don't think the US is quite that dystopian yet. But if you think that Buc-ees, that is, the fact you can find a clean toilet here and there is the final form of the American Dream, maybe you have some reckoning to do.
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HTC phones from OEM don't come with Unit 8200 APT implants so they're inferior?
Trump recently said that True MAGA is whatever Mark Levin is saying so I'm trying to steelman.
Or StealMan in this case?
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Indeed. MAGAs are hallucinating worse than the least capable LLMs. Quite an achievement, if not a positive one.
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A lot of people care, just not MAGA losers like you.
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"Although, it is fucking hilarious that the world's richest nation should sow the seeds of its own demise."
Sounds like you do.
Re: Another con from the conman. Nothing new here. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me put this in terms you can understand.
Close your eyes.
Now imagine Obama doing this exact same thing.
Re: Another con from the conman. Nothing new here. (Score:5, Insightful)
MOD PARENT UP (Score:3)
Mod parent up because it's the truth- you MAGA fucktards would have an aneurysm if Obama so much as thought of doing this.
Re: Another con from the conman. Nothing new here. (Score:5, Interesting)
So the Make America Great Again enthusiasts that are so enthusiastic as to buy a fucking smartphone from a politician that has been screaming about Making America Great Again for over a decade won't care that their "Made in USA" marketed "freedom phone" -- promised to have "America-Proud Design" -- is a white-label shitty Chinese phone, made from Chinese parts, in a Chinese factory, for a Taiwanese company who didn't even care enough to design it themselves.
You don't think they care?
You don't care about the hypocrisy of threatening actual manufacturers of unique products (Apple, Google) with tariffs in the same business sector he now has a direct interest isn't a problem?
You don't find it interesting that he is importing cheap Chinese garbage and illegally marketing them as Made in USA for preorders; but quietly crossing that bit out when they shipped a product that only the final assembly was done in USA by some low paid guy in a Florida shed? You don't think the people that paid might care?
You don't think it's worth knowing that the only think that is "American-Proud Design" about this, is the design to separate stupid hayseeds from their money, delivering a half-assed shitty product that barely checks the legally required boxes while running away with the money? Don't you think people might want to know that the only hardware service they can expect to receive is "hah you actually bought one of these?!"
Re: Another con from the conman. Nothing new here. (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't think they care?
No, they don't. Trump is Jesus to them. Anything he says is the right and true gospel and he can do no wrong. Seriously if someone is still supporting Trump they are so far down the rabbit hole that another case of lying and grift isn't going to make a dent.
If you look at the opinion polls, the shift to more negative ratings has been from blockheads who were somehow on the fence before and now don't like high gas prices. The number of people who think he's doing a good job has barely shifted.
THEY. DON'T. CARE.
Found the sycophant (Score:3)
As the title states, found the sycophant and the happy bigot, the unrepentant racist, and the groveling toady whose IQ barely reaches room temp on a good day.
Fuck off back to Scumbagville where you belong.
Re:Another con from the conman. Nothing new here. (Score:5, Insightful)
"No conservative actually cared..."
Of course not, you don't get Two Santas by caring. The party of sociopathy and racism only cares about power and money.
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Re:Another con from the conman. Nothing new here. (Score:4, Informative)
Just remember, they made Jimmy Carter sell his peanut farm.
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Nobody forced him to sell anything. He did it on his own accord.
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Re: Another con from the conman. Nothing new here. (Score:2)
If you can point to the Democrat who's even remotely in the same league as Trump, please do. I'll wait.
In the meantime we can all continue to laugh at how hard Trump is fucking over the people who voted for him.
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Because la Presidenta is a giant buttplug screwing up science and technology in the U.S.
Can't wait (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Can't wait (Score:4, Interesting)
It'll get even better when someone discover that the software wasn't even touched and is sending all the user activities to CCP's servers.
Re:Can't wait (Score:5, Informative)
yes but they have tiny penises so it is ok.
Re: Can't wait (Score:2)
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And? Thought there should be some "news". (Score:4, Insightful)
Watches, guitars, maga hats... all Chinese products sold with fake patriotism to gullible twits. Just don't be one of those twits and move on with your life. My dad bought monster cables. He wasn't getting his money back so I kept my opinion to myself. In the grand scheme of DJT grifting this doesn't begin to move the needle.
You are complicit. (Score:5, Interesting)
Acting primitively, based on gut feeling, and in a shortsighted manner comes naturally. It takes continuous effort to act rationally, based on reason, and by seeing the bigger picture along various dimensions. It is hard.
The biggest mistake we've made is to reduce the derision of such primitive behavior and reduce the exaltation of rational behavior through various routes ("just be yourself", "it's okay, you're only human"). We need to keep calling this out in others and ourselves, or it will take over and ruin everything even more than it already has.
Letting people act like fucking idiots is not OK.
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Some would say policing others over what you perceive to be incorrect, unintelligent behaviour makes YOU the socially incompatible misfit who needs to be corrected. For instance, I would say that. I am saying that.
Pick your battles. That should't be one of them, Otherwise you'll spend your whole life getting angry at people who bought beanie babies before the crash.
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makes YOU the socially incompatible misfit
Nobody was talking about being socially compatible, but now that you mention it: fear of conflict is exactly why people let things slide into disarray whilst feeding themselves the narrative that they're being nice, friendly and agreeable.
Remember: Real friends tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear, even if it is hard for all parties involved and risks straining the relation. The art is to do it in a constructive yet honest manner.
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I think you misunderstood his comment. What he said what to just move on, don't look close and don't insist on accountability. That's because he doesn't want to lose out of exploitation. He prefers just to disparage others and grift himself.
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"Nope. No idea how you got there."
I read his post. And you're taking my comment far too seriously.
"This isn't much of a grift, anyway,"
By what standard? It's purely a grift.
"...you need to realize is that they're buying two things - a phone and a feeling of contributing to, and participating in, the cause. "
Right, a grift.
"Valuing the second part at zero is to misunderstand human nature."
As if anyone has done that. The point is that it's a grift.
But my comment about grift was directed to the OP, not to T
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I apologize. I checked the nesting three times, though, and was sure you were referring to my post. I really hate that about slashdot.
But I still maintain the point that it's only slightly scammy. It's a functioning phone and the feeling they're buying is real. They've only been scammed a little. As I said, as his grifts go, this one is pretty penny ante.
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I agree that it technically isn't a grift.
The problem is people buying it to affirm their tribal membership in a space where tribalism is excessively damaging to society.
Tribalism is already way too rampant, but at least in sports it is relatively benign (although hooliganism is a problem); in other areas it is fairly inconsequential or even has some advantages (at least Apple fanboys get some quality hardware and Android fanboys more freedom and control), but in politics? In politics tribalism gets you ins
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Studies show that human IQ has fallen considerably over the last decade. I'm afraid nature and/or the chemicals in the air that create dumber babies isn't on your side.
I also wonder if the Interwebs might be playing a significant part in the decline. I don't believe that IQ is necessarily determined at birth, and I don't think that (physical) environmental factors such as "chemicals in the air" can take all of the blame for lower average intelligence.
When we have instant access to answers, along with immediate help to do things that formerly took study and practice, we lose brain power. When our attention to even that stream of cripplingly effortless info and entertainmen
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When we have instant access to answers, along with immediate help to do things that formerly took study and practice, we lose brain power.
You are again absolving people from personal responsibility via this "it's the environment/technology"-reasoning.
As an example: Yes, food has been engineered to make people want to eat more, but the main reason some people are fat as fuck is the normalization of being fat as fuck and subsequently those people no longer making an effort to override their primitive drives. There are huge difference between countries and people within those countries, even in the face of very similar environments. People make
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Most notable in the last decade is MAGA, you know about that don't you?
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My dad bought monster cables. He wasn't getting his money back so I kept my opinion to myself.
We have ample evidence that expectation bias translates the use of high end cables directly into a perception of improved audio quality.
In many ways this is no different. Drawing a flag and the word Trump on a Chinese device gives the perception of American made quality. The question isn't one for your dad though. The question is for someone else, the people who *HAVEN'T* yet bought the phone need to have the fraud pointed out. Just like you wouldn't recommend to your friend to buy monster cables even thoug
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My dad bought monster cables. He wasn't getting his money back so I kept my opinion to myself.
Monster Cables weren't being hawked by the president, though. That's an important distinction you're glossing over.
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Not so much "glossing over" as resigned to it. The stack of malfeasance with this guy would crush a small animal if it fell over sideways.
When the bulk of his ill gotten gains is now measured in billions, some five hundred dollar phones with misleading country of origin provenance seems not worth dwelling on.
Yeah, that ain't good... but here we are.
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Monster cables may have actually supplied audio fidelity during the analog days. Were they worth the 300% markup? Probably not. Keeping that 300% markup once fully digital? Total scam.
if Trump could've hawked them, you know he would. They're plated in gold, just like everything he likes! Gold plated cables, $4 million dollars each, best audio fidelity for a digital cable, guaranteed! Of course, a $1 digital cable has the exact same fidelity, lol. Remember the Energizer vs Duracell battery wars? No battery l
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I get it (Score:2)
Anyone... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Anyone... (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone who thinks Donald Trump is a trustworthy, reliable guy you can safely buy a phone or a cryptocoin off ... hasn't been awake for 10 years or longer.
I'm not sure MAGA folks think that Trump is trustworthy, maybe, maybe not. What they think is that their lives are not what they expected. Income equality has hit them hard. They're frustrated. Trump comes along and tells them that it's not their fault. It's the fault of Democrats, Biden, immigrants, Africans, Latin Americans, Chinese, blue states, etc. The one thing MAGA folk have despite income equality is a sea of votes. A populist comes along and sweeps away all their problems by blaming their social enemies. The blame was never really reasonable, but reason is not needed because the blame is felt viscerally. This is why Trump without fear of retribution can murder someone in Times Square, or say that he loves inflation, or unilaterally start a new war after blaming Biden for starting wars, etc. The social blame is what endures. Outsiders might view that blame as hate, but MAGA sees it as liberation.
Re: Anyone... (Score:3, Interesting)
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Sorry about your parents, explains a lot.
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"It was him or Biden..."
It was not, every voter knew Biden wasn't running when ballots were cast. Worse yet, any candidate, no matter how bad, would be preferable to Trump.
"Most conservatives would have preferred any Republican but him."
So what, conservatives have no power or importance in the Republican Party. That's part of the problem, Trump gets free support from stupid partisanship.
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I'm sorry, but Trump really isn't the worst president possible. The worst since 1780 possibly.
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Who said anything about the worst possible? The comment was about what any actual candidate would be.
Hitler might have been a worse choice, Hitler would not have been the Democratic nominee. Musk would be worse, but Musk intends to seize the Presidency, not be elected to it.
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It was him or Biden, democrats wouldn't read the room so they lost.
It was Trump or Harris. Biden dropped out mid-race.
I will give you though, that it was an incredibly boneheaded move by the Democrats to yet again assume that because Trump is so awful, their own candidate's extreme lack of likability is irrelevant.
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Re:Anyone... (Score:4, Funny)
Of course Donald Trump is trustworthy. He tried his best, but ultimately he was hamstrung by HUSSEIN Obama destroying manufacturing in this country by selling out to China using Hunter's laptop. There was a plan for Biden to fix this but he fell asleep. It was all there in Hillary's emails. The dumbocrats have destroyed the country. Also did you know how smart Donald Trump is? Apparently most people don't even know dumb has a b on the end. Trump did. He pointed it out. The man's genius has no bounds and you criticising him makes you a horrible person piggy.
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Boiling Frogs (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes all the details are silly about this but can we stop and appreciate how fucking insane that we are here discussing the details of the *President of the United States of America* hawking a cell phone of his own company that he profits off to Americans?
Being 1 day after the UFC White House fight I know this seems rather quaint but for real, we've gone too far and as the fight last night reminded us a significant portion of the country wanted to do this because they actually really cannot stop thinking about girlcock.
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No kidding, there would be serious issues with what is happening here even if the phone was 100% American made and of good quality.
There, I fixed it for you. (Score:2)
Being 1 day after the UFC White House fight I know this seems rather quaint but for real, we've gone too far and as the fight last night reminded us a significant portion of the country wanted to do this because they ...
... watched Idiocracy and thought "this is fine."
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Hey President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho had the good sense to give the smartest man in the world a cabinet position and when he had a suggestion he listened to him. Better executive management skills than what we have now.
Re: There, I fixed it for you. (Score:2)
Camacho was also ultimately able to work with others for the common good, I think there's a big difference there.
I wonder what future historians will think when they observe the very near release of Idiocracy and election of Donald Trump.
Re:Boiling Frogs (Score:5, Interesting)
Did a fighter last night accuse Michelle Obama of having a penis on national TV yes or no?
Notice what you responded to? I struck a nerve! The comment just reminded you how much you consider it.
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"Clearly it won't be long before TDS is a recognized mental disorder, and asylums get billions in Federal funding, because +5 Insightful."
Sure, because Trump wants to help his enemies. The quality of Russian trolls isn't what it used to be.
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i truly do miss soviet russia (comments), how far have we fallen.
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come on we all want the thunderdome
Sue Trump (Score:2)
Sue Trump and everything associated with Trump phone. That's all he understands.
Seriously, though (Score:5, Insightful)
Is literally anyone surprised at this point - at anything associated with Trump and/or his family?
Re:Seriously, though (Score:4, Informative)
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If it actually accommodates and accesses microSD cards properly, that'll be a third surprise. If not, well, I suppose that was to be expected [youtu.be].
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The people who would be surprised at this will never see the article in their feeds.
That's why you have to go out of your way to tell them. So they can say blah blah Biden blah China and Kamala's phone would have been worse. So we can go back to not feeling bad about not visiting this summer.
I'm legitimately surprised (Score:2)
It's a lousy price for the phone but phone prices are shooting up. I just had to replace a phone and to get a good modern Snapdragon chipset with a nice fancy modem cost me $800 and that wasn't even top of the line.
It's still a terrible price because you can get a $250 Mo
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I'm surprised HTC is still making anything for the US market. I had a Droid Incredible back in the day and it was pretty decent for what it was.
No Worries (Score:3, Insightful)
The Base loves a lie
Re: No Worries (Score:5, Informative)
They've been trained to believe that anything said by their bubble is Truth, anything said by anyone else is lies. Which is why yesterday's Truth (release Epstein files) is today's lies (don't release, oops Trump is in it lots and lots).
"The truth has a well-known liberal bias" -a smart cancelled man
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I love how you now talk like that's not you. And you hate lies? Who do you think you're fooling? You know we can see your account name, right?
This isn't news. (Score:2)
News would be if he did something that *wasn't* fraudulent.
Isn't HTC R&D in Taiwan? (Score:3)
Although virtually all the parts were probably manufactured in mainland China, and the the bulk of the assembly also done there, I thought the actual design was Taiwanese, not Mainland Chinese.
What was not Taiwanese was an attempt to put a fairly new version of Android together with an outdated application architecture version which causes some incompatibility issues which I am not confident the support organization will be able to deal with.
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The company is Taiwanese, but they sold their smartphone design people to Google in 2017 and rely on Original Design Manufacturers in China now.
"Envisioned in the USA" (Score:3)
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Given the kitsch look I think USA "envisioned" products these days are a hard pass. The phone looks like the kind of cheap trinket you'd buy at a Marrakesh market for someone who tells you it's 100 dirham but when you go to pay claims you agreed to pay 100 euros.
Except that market stall owner has more integrity and is more trustworthy than Trump.
The Apple iPhone is American designed as well. (Score:2)
By these standard, all I have to do is get an American flag case for my iPhone and I will have the equivalent.
I'm being ripped off (Score:4, Funny)
"From pre-order emails landing in Gmail spam thanks to botched DMARC records, to paying for the $47.45 Trump Mobile 47 Plan"
What the heck??! They are charging me $86.47 for my mobile 47 plan.
Has anyone checked? (Score:2)
I would be willing to bet money that the Trump phone has special tariff exemptions. It is surprising I haven't seen any reporting on it.
Anyone here happen to know?
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no one is going to take that bet,
Who's surprised? (Score:2)
Trump loves to do business with Chy-NAH!
That's actually not a bad phone, I expected worse. (Score:2)
It beats my phone TBH.
Inconceivable (Score:3)
what a great day! (Score:2)
Hilarious as expected. (Score:3)
The adult choice to be tech-ignorant in 2026 has consequences.
There is no excuse for that level of self-neglect. Boomers don't get a pass since they lived through the birth of the internet. If you're old in 2026 you had many decades beforehand to pull head from arse and learn.
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It works with subsidized phone plans. So not sure what you are trying to get at here.
Re:in other words (Score:4, Informative)
The ObamaPhone was started by Bush.
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It's completely different, it can be no more different than it is. The Trump phone is a grift from the family itself, it had nothing to do with the federal government.
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Its no different than an ObamaPhone
There was never an "ObamaPhone". There was just subsidized devices and service for people who passed a means test. Granted, there was a bit of crony capitalism involved with that, since it was a guaranteed revenue stream to the companies that provided the services, but on the whole it was nowhere near as screwed up as the president having his own branded MVNO - which is the case with Trump Mobile.
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We're in a post-fact society, sir.
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yeah thats right, i only care to pay for the ballroom and casino extravaganza with circus outside and inside.