Trump Mobile shares T1 model, but something doesn't look right
President Donald Trump's smartphone company, Trump Mobile, is engaging in some apparent tomfoolery on X.
Trump Mobile initially announced plans to release a "made in America" smartphone called the T1, before quietly removing that language from its website in June.
On Thursday, Aug. 19, Trump Mobile shared a new promo for the phone on X, telling customers to "Preorder today & be among the first to experience it." The post states the phone has a "gold finish" and "big power," and is accompanied by a photo of the phone. Well, a phone, anyway.
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Android users quickly realized the T1 was actually just a photoshopped image of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. X users also pointed out that the so-called gold finish is clearly a phone case made by the accessory brand Spigen.
A Community Notes fact-check of the post states: "The phone in the image is a photoshopped Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra in a case by the accessory company Spigen, it is not the 'T1 Phone'. The Spigen logo is still visible under the digitally added American Flag."
Strangely, the Trump Mobile website actually does have a photo of the alleged phone that looks completely different from this new image. In the photo on the website, the T1 has three diagonally arranged rear camera modules like a Pro-level iPhone, rather than the vertically arranged stack you'd find on a Samsung device.
The T1 was announced earlier this year as a $499 Android device with a 6.25-inch AMOLED display, 256GB of storage, and a 5,000mAh battery. Despite promises that the T1 would be made in America (President Trump has famously pushed Apple to move iPhone manufacturing to the U.S.), the country actually lacks the manufacturing infrastructure to create some of the phone's key components. Internet sleuths also discovered that the smartphone's promised specs are nearly identical to a cheap smartphone made in China.
At this point, it's not clear what the promised T1 smartphone will look like, or to what extent it will be built or assembled in the United States. So, unless you had your heart set on a budget phone with gold plating and Trump branding, you might want to look elsewhere for a budget Android handset.
Topics Android Donald Trump
Alex Perry is a tech reporter at Mashable who primarily covers video games and consumer tech. Alex has spent most of the last decade reviewing games, smartphones, headphones, and laptops, and he doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon. He is also a Pisces, a cat lover, and a Kansas City sports fan. Alex can be found on Bluesky at yelix.bsky.social.
