The Trump Phone becomes an even worse deal after a massive $250 price hike
If you were considering buying the highly controversial Trump Mobile T1 Phone... for some reason, please don't!
The T1 Phone is absolutely not worth $749. | Image by Trump Mobile
Whether you can separate the first-ever Trump Phone from the person (or rather the family) behind its creation and name or not and regardless of your political affiliations and views, I have some news today that's guaranteed to draw a negative reaction from all of you.
The repackaged HTC U24 Pro that was somewhat surprisingly released this June following a wait of around a year and multiple revised marketing statements is the latest device to have fallen a victim to the so-called industry-wide "chipflation" or "RAMageddon." That's far from shocking, of course, but the apparent impact of the rising component costs on the T1 Phone's list price is... unusual (to say the least).
Is a 50 percent price increase justified?
Almost certainly not, but it's not like Trump Mobile or The Trump Organization are trying very hard to communicate with their fans and followers anyway. While many other tech companies have hiked the prices of many existing products in recent months with little to no advance notice, almost every brand I can think of has released some sort of statement after the fact explaining why it was necessary.
The T1 Phone has arrived!! Those who pre-ordered the T1 Phone will be receiving an update email. Phones start shipping this week!!! pic.twitter.com/IsOre1cBa1
— Trump Mobile (@TrumpMobile) May 13, 2026
The Trump Mobile T1 Phone (or, as we all know it, the Trump Phone), meanwhile, jumped from its $499 launch price to $749 yesterday without a single word being tweeted on its manufacturer's official social media channel... since May.
This obviously feels highly disrespectful towards all of the handset's prospective buyers, but naturally, the $250 (or 50 percent) price increase itself is even more enraging. Granted, the Trump Phone does happen to pack a lot of RAM (12GB) and internal storage space (512 gigs), but this is still not a 1TB iPhone 18 Pro Max we're talking about here.
How does this price hike compare to others we've seen this year?
In short, very badly. It's true, the aforementioned new iPhone 18 Pro Max with a whole terabyte of local digital hoarding room is $300 costlier than an equivalent iPhone 17 Pro Max variant from last year, but that only equates to 20 percent of the older handset's original price and it obviously comes with many important upgrades and improvements.
Do you have any intention of buying the Trump Phone now?
2 Votes
A much more fair comparison is with something like the "vanilla" iPhone 17, which has just received a $100 price increase in both 256 and 512GB storage configurations, or the budget-friendly iPhone 17e, which is also 100 bucks more expensive now than back when it made its commercial debut in March.
Samsung, meanwhile, made the likes of the 256GB Galaxy S25 FE and 512GB Galaxy Z Flip 7 just $40 and $80 costlier than before around five months ago while also releasing the mid-range Galaxy A37 and Galaxy A57 5G at $50 more than their predecessors a few weeks earlier.
So should you buy the Trump Phone?
Absolutely not. Of course, I probably would have told you exactly that before this price hike as well, and you only need to take a quick look at this Reddit thread from a couple of months ago to understand why.
Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican (or a Libertarian or a totally apolitical person), I'm sure you don't appreciate being misled into believing a phone will be "Made in the USA" only for that claim to be modified into "designed with American values in mind", which... doesn't really mean anything, especially in relation to an HTC-produced device.
They advertised it as American-made and used images that showed flagship Apple and Samsung devices. It also comes with Android 15 (!) and basically no guarantee of any software updates. Can't get much more of a scam.
Athrul on Reddit
That was far from the only thing wrong with the T1 Phone's overly bombastic and confusing advertising, mind you, and even if you're willing to overlook those types of "goofs", the handset itself is... not great (to be kind), still running Android 15 with no word on a single OS upgrade being on the way while packing a modest (by 2026 standards) Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 processor.
These aren't the kind of compromises you should be okay with making at $499, let alone $749, especially when something like Apple's iPhone 17e and Samsung's brand-new Galaxy S26 FE start at $699 (and when the latter can be had with a $200 Amazon gift card included in that price).
If you still want to know more about the Trump Phone, check out these articles:
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