As tempting as it would be to pretend the Trump phone doesn’t exist, whether for your mental health or in the hopes of preserving any paper-thin scraps of hope you have left in high-level ethical standards, it appears we now have photo evidence that it does, sadly, exist.
Here’s a photo of it, but let me warn you: once you see the Trump phone, you cannot unsee the Trump phone.
Politics and availability issues aside, this is just a horrendously tacky looking phone. It’s easily one of the ugliest consumer electronics devices I’ve ever seen.
Supporting your favorite politician or political ideology shouldn’t force you to completely abdicate good… pic.twitter.com/9SggHLYGiU
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) February 10, 2026
This look comes courtesy of The Verge, which actually managed to land a video call with Don Hendrickson, the president of Trump Mobile, regarding the T1, as this phone has been aptly dubbed.
There are a few things you’ll notice about the T1, but the first thing that may catch your poor, unsuspecting eye is that it looks f**king awful. Yes, it’s gold, as we already knew, but gold in the way that, like, toys you’d get in a Happy Meal are gold, or gold in the way that those little Easter egg chocolates you’d get in a basket as a kid are gold. It’s gold in a way that says, “Look at me, I’m a shiny piece of plastic garbage you want to consume and forget about immediately.”
Apparently, when it ships, the Trump phone will drop the T1 logo, but retain the American flag logo, so you can let everyone know that this device still is totally not made in America. Hendrickson tells The Verge that some final assembly will take place in Miami, though. Cool. It’s worth noting here that the camera design is markedly different from what was pictured in Trump Mobile’s original renderings. Instead of the triangular rear-facing camera array, there’s a vertically aligned tri-sensor array that screams outdated Samsung Galaxy more than it screams iPhone Pro.
Hendrickson also told The Verge a few things about the T1’s specs. When (if) it ships, the T1 will come with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 chip, which is not the latest and greatest in Qualcomm’s chip lineup—that would be the Snapdragon 8 Elite. The T1 reportedly has a 5,000mAh battery and 512GB of storage that is expandable with a microSD card. Camera-wise, The Verge is reporting that there’s a 50-megapixel sensor for both the main and selfie cameras, but that’s all that’s been confirmed.
As for the prolonged release, Hendrickson tells The Verge that Trump Mobile’s efforts to completely re-spec the device are the reason for the delays. The T1 was initially supposed to ship in either August or September, but has still (as you may have already gathered) not done so. Hendrickson tells The Verge that the T1 is expected to launch in mid-March, but who’s to say, really? Can you really put stock in a company that immediately pivoted to selling overpriced and outdated Samsung and Apple devices?
For those who reserved the T1 already, the phone will allegedly ship at its promised $499 price tag (minus the $100 you put down if you were misguided enough to do so), but the folks at Trump Mobile are already forecasting a hike. The Verge writes that “later buyers” will end up paying “less than $1,000.” Sigh.
So, as a recap: the T1 looks bad, has seemingly midrange specs, has offered little in the way of a hard release date, is already seemingly slated for a drastic price hike, and—wait, did I mention how bad it looks? When it comes to Trump-affiliated cash grabs, I’ve lost my capacity for shock, so I won’t even pretend to be surprised by anything I’ve just relayed to you, but this is where we’re at, I guess. The good news is, I highly doubt anyone will be compelled to buy this device, so… no harm, no foul, I guess?
