And say what you will about the T1, but let’s give credit where it’s due. Trump Mobile aren’t gouging their fanbase…not yet anyway. Against all expectations, the T1 is actually well priced when compared to the equivalently specced 512GB U24 Pro, and the only things you give up are the 60W fast charging and your dignity.
Honestly the most shocking thing about it.
most likely it has bloatware, and some spyware in the phone.
I’m surprised it’s a gold painted HTC phone from two years ago (good quality even if probably HTC had a warehouse full of unsold inventory that they were happy to repaint at huge discount) and not the cheapest shit that you can find on Alibaba with a soc from a decade ago and the ROM already preloaded with malware.
Lol
Be prepared to see the return of the hip-mounted phone-holster.
It will certainly be placed next to the open-carry holster.
I can see the cross draw deaths in my mind. It is beautiful.
Trump always find a way to scam his supporters
Made in China?
The shipping label was generated in America
HTC is Taiwanese, but the components are mostly from Southeast Asia and of course, Mainland China.
Ta, it seems that HTC have stopped manufacturing as of this year and the U24 stocks are still available but being run down in some markets (I read that as developing countries but it obviously includes the USA 🤔). Trump must have got a fire sale deal on an end of life model. A great deal for everyone!
I saw in the teardown that the battery was made in the Philippines
I am surprised it is actually a clone of something people have heard of. I was expecting something on the level of what you can get for $50 at Walmart.
Painted? So not even as gold as the wrappers of chocolate coins?
If they did that, it would trash the cell reception. Metal blocks signal.
I feel like this was known for more than a year at this point.
NGL, I expected worse.
Still wouldn’t buy it on a fucking dare, but I was expecting at least a 10 year old phone, not a 2 year old one.
Don’t give them credit for anything. They intended to keep all their money, and stiff the MAGA dummies. Then it hit the media in a big way, and they decided to get it done ASAP.
So they found a manufacturer that had enough inventory to fulfill the orders, and went with them. Under those circumstances it would almost certainly be a fairly recent model. Ten year old phones might not even have manufacturer support. The fact that they had so many hanging around means this model was probably a dog.
The time gap between the news stories about Trump Media’s terms and the release of the Trump Phone was only a month or less. Not enough time to put together something like that. My personal conspiracy theory has been that it was an attempt to embarrass the press. The phones were ready to be shipped and TM changed the terms to say there was no guarantee any “Device will be commercially released”. They let that play out on the blogs for a while then released the phones. Now the narrative can be “look how wrong The Media was” instead of, “Look at how cheap these phones made in China are”.
Holy shit!
…HTC still makes phones?
Yes, just not for the North American market
It makes this supposedly being an American phone even more ironic.
How do you know they didn’t spin up a factory here and create jobs? /s
ngl i thought they spun-off their phone business,i checked Wikipedia and they still make Phones.
Me too, I assumed all their engineers were acqui-hired by Google for the Pixel line
Still or again? I know they’ve been out of the EU market for a long time but I’m not sure if they ever stopped altogether or just pivoted to electricity markets
Honestly I am just shocked that a physical phone exists at all.
It didn’t. After customers started to post online, the media picked it up. Trump inc (co?) did the same thing with Trump watches and his Trump shoes. Both produce a rip-off product and only after being caught.
Fuck him!
Jimmy Carter was considered a complete failure by republicans. He had high inflation, high energy prices, high unemployment, and American lives lost in Iran.
Trump speedran that and the opposite party was not actively colluding to undermind him. I still haven’t brought up Carter having to sale his farm and his brother.
He sold his brother? Damn
Against all expectations, the T1 is actually well priced when compared to the equivalently specced 512GB U24 Pro, and the only things you give up are the 60W fast charging and your dignity.
lol
Another great snip:
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.
The factories name is America
But that’s a coincidence, it actually means beautiful rain in Chinese or something.
Well you’re half right, America in Chinese is 美国，美 means beautiful.
Golden rain of fat man
HTC probably gave him a discount not to attach their name
So just the fast charging then. I don’t think anyone seriously buying this to use has any of the other thing left to give up.
The validity of the “Assembled in the USA” markings aside, the big question for many is why can’t a smartphone be made in the US? Again, there are lots of reasons but the big ones are the absence of the necessary manufacturing base, the lack of expertise in the labour pool, and cost. Bringing any part of the production line to the US, even the simpler non-electronic components like the chassis and the back cover, would put upward pressure on the price of the final product.
And say what you will about the T1, but let’s give credit where it’s due. Trump Mobile aren’t gouging their fanbase…not yet anyway. Against all expectations, the T1 is actually well priced when compared to the equivalently specced 512GB U24 Pro, and the only things you give up are the 60W fast charging and your dignity.
I wonder if the same problem will turn out to apply for routers.
why can’t a smartphone be made in the US? Again, there are lots of reasons but the big ones are the absence of the necessary manufacturing base, the lack of expertise in the labour pool, and cost.
Why didn’t they just pray for them? Weird.
For the same reason we don’t have an auto industry anymore. Outsourced everything for cheap labor.
Supply-side Jesus, why have you forsaken us?
… oh, right, now I remember.
I am genuinely surprised… I didn’t know HTC even still existed
My Taiwanese friend pushed these so hard, but at the time, isn’t ready to jump ship to Android quite yet. I ended up getting an Xperia for my first android because nothing looked interesting enough from HTC. I kept waiting for that “one,” but they just said fuck it we’re not making shit anymore. They also tried to jump onto the crypto bandwagon with a built-in wallet or something. I dunno why anyone would need that when you have a bajillion software wallets.
They do, just don’t release phones in the States anymore. It’s a shame because I really liked their phones.
“In May 2019, then-United States President Donald Trump announced that HUAWEI and several other Chinese companies were now on the “Entity List.” Companies on this list cannot do business with any organization that operates in the United States.”
Oh good golly it’s going to be a wonderful day today!
Edit: as ahornsirup pointed out, this isn’t really relevant. I got crossed up searching HTC with Huawei somewhere along the line.
Just like so many other things, I’m sure that bit will be buried.
Well, HTC is Taiwanese so there really isn’t much of a story there.
Facepalm
Wow, my google-fu failed me pretty spectacularly. I was searching the HTC ban for patent infringement from Apple and at some point crossed with Huawei.
Though having said that, hey Apple, does that camera protrusion look familiar? Ask your lawyers!
I really liked their phones.
Have I got good new for you! AND, it’ll be gold ᶜᵒˡᵒʳᵉᵈ!
Haven’t seen them here in Europe in over a decade I think.
same here, it was a big thing in the us as a cheap non-google, samsung or apple phone until they banned most huwei tech for “spying potential”, we know the us does it worst.
All the recent Nokia’s were theirs, so probably more recent than you think. But yeh, nothing since then I think?
Or am I getting my 3 letter company names mixed up?
Yes. Post-microsoft Nokias are/were made by Human Mobile Devices.
I’m not getting the new NSA phone, that’s certain.
Definitely a shame, I swear the second they announce an htc g3, im buying
The Dream and Magic were the beginning of an era!
They were the beginning of a Dream that turned into a nightmare (first for HTC, then for consumers).
Fuck, remember when Android was genuinely open source and we had a little computer with mobile internet that fit in our pockets that we could install our own open source OS ROMs on? What an incredible time to be alive that was.
I thought they were called Google Pixels now since Google bought them for $1.1B in 2017.
Looks like HTC worked with Google on the first Pixel then sold them about half of the R&D talent and non-exclusive rights on the technology. So yes and no.
I didn’t know the phones were real
They’re only real if you’re a journalist. The random sheep who pre-ordered them are never gonna get theirs. Mark my words.
They don’t really, they pay ODM to design the phones. Trumps probably paid ODM to reuse the design.
An ODM is a type of company - although it’s very possible they paid the same ODM to make the phones, since they likely have the tooling ready to go.
