Watch: CNET's Patrick Holland tests the Trump Phone and answers your questions live
May 22, 2026
CNET takes a closer look at the Trump Phone live.
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0:00
All right, all right, everybody, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome
0:16
I'm CNET, Patrick Holland, and this is a live show. It's a live show
0:22
It's an all things mobile going all across the CNET group channels. And today we're here to talk about the one, the only, maybe even the infamous Trump phone
0:30
But I can't just talk about the Trump phone as I knock things down all by myself
0:36
I need someone to join me. So I've asked for probably the best person to help me here
0:40
And that is senior executive producer, Noomi. Hello, hello, hello. Hello, hello
0:47
You added a title there for me, but you know what? I'll take it. It says right there, senior executive producer
0:53
Oh, I thought you said senior. I was like, I'm. Oh, there you go. Yeah, I got you promoted
0:58
You got promoted. I'm being honest with you too. Thanks, Patrick. Thanks. It's like we're promoting
1:03
All right. So let's talk about this. Yeah, you jump in then
1:09
What would we like to, how do you want to do this? No, I'm just, I'm going to ask you some questions from the audience and also some questions that I may have
1:18
And, you know, we're here to put you on the spot with this. Great, great, great. I feel like a bit character-toppy with all these props, but hopefully
1:29
some of these will be used to answer questions that people might have. Actually, do you want to
1:33
run through what props you have? You came prepared. Yeah, I mean, I think the first place is, let's
1:39
start with this image here, and this image is, I guess I should hold it here. This was the original
1:46
image of the T1 phone by Trump Mobile, nicknamed the Trump phone. And it kind of looked a little
1:53
bit like this phone, which is the iPhone 15 or 16 Pro. In fact, this is a very kind of light gold
2:03
color. But this one, or the Trump phone on the front looked more like an Android phone. So it had
2:11
this kind of almost, I don't know, like if you took like a Galaxy phone and an iPhone and kind
2:16
of like mix them together and then were to charge someone $500 for it and then have that phone be
2:24
made in the USA, it's like, holy smokes, that's an incredible, incredible thing if someone could
2:31
pull that off. However, what we got is this phone, which is the T1 phone from Trump Mobile
2:41
I got messages on it. I don't even know how this is possible. Trump mobile phone here
2:48
And it's not quite looking like an iPhone. It's not a horrible phone
2:56
It looks like a mid-range Android phone. And it costs $500. And I should also say up front that we pre-ordered the phone
3:05
I know a lot of people did. and the Trump mobile people expedited our order because we're CNET
3:12
And I do hope that other people who ordered it, no matter what your feelings are about the company
3:19
or the people who made the phone, are that they get the phone and get what they paid for
3:23
because no one deserves to be ripped off. But I'm here to talk about having the phone
3:30
I think we've had it less than 24 hours and probably some just general questions. There's been a lot of reactions to our unboxing video
3:36
but I think that's a pretty good setup. Yeah, actually, probably the number one thing that was asked is
3:43
a lot of people are calling out that this looks very similar to the HTC U24 phone, which was
3:51
it's a two or three-year-old phone right now, Chinese-made. Do you see any similarities yourself
3:59
How would you test this? How would you go about comparing if this was, you know, dead stock reskinned
4:07
Or is that a normal thing for manufacturers? Those are all good questions
4:11
So I think the first thing maybe to do is actually refer to the box. Because while this phone was not made in the USA, the box clearly says proudly assembled in the USA
4:21
So I don't know what that means. Like maybe parts of it were assembled here and then shipped abroad for final production
4:29
Or maybe it was just put in the box here. Maybe the box is proudly assembled in the USA
4:34
So I'm not sure what that means. But I don't know of a phone maybe beyond Samsung that's not made in part through China
4:43
Like just the way the global phone supply that works. And with Android, what's nice is it's like Taco Bell
4:48
You can kind of take different processors might be in like the same or different versions of phones
4:54
So you could have like a processor that's in like a OnePlus phone that's in a Samsung phone
4:59
phone. And there's other times where we see companies will skin or rebrand a phone like
5:07
HTC. Oh my God. I'm spacing out the name. It's not HTC. HTC is what we think this phone looks
5:16
like. We should note that HTC in 2024 kind of relaunched with a new phone. Kind of the OG HTC
5:23
got acquired by Google and became Pixel. So this phone came out in 2024 called the HTC U24 Pro 5G
5:31
I believe. And yeah, there's undoubtedly some similarities to it. And you know what? It wasn't
5:37
a horrible phone, but it did not. It wasn't gold. It didn't have Trump Mobile on it, and it didn't
5:41
have a pseudo-American flag on the bottom. So it is no doubt that this is a Chinese phone
5:49
and get that if I think for a brand I were launching a new phone and I were just to say like hey I want
5:55
to do a $500 phone that's affordable and speaks to a particular person's fan base like if you just
6:03
said that up front I think you still get a lot of a lot of people interested in the phone and
6:07
just acknowledging the realities of what it is to do that but I think back remember when they were
6:12
talking about how much it would cost the iPhone to be made in the U.S. Numi do you remember that
6:17
talk like last year? I do remember that. Yes. I don't, I don't have the number. Oh, I do. Cause
6:23
the number, the number went all over the place depending on what week it was. Uh, but it'd be about like $3,500 to manufacture a phone. And then on top of that, of course, like companies are
6:32
going to put, uh, a profit margin. So, uh, I can't imagine how much it would cost to manufacture
6:37
this phone from scratch in the United States. Uh, and that speaks maybe more to the, uh, world
6:44
where we're in where, yeah, having production and things made in the US is great. And there's
6:50
people whose livelihoods depend on that. But I don't know if being able to do that in a few months
6:56
because remember, this was supposed to come out last year over like in August or so
7:00
is possible. So now we are here with this phone, which undoubtedly looks very HTC-like. And kind
7:08
of in our Taco Bell ogy. It has a Snapdragon processor, has 12 gigabytes of RAM. It also
7:14
has some other features that are kind of nifty. The software, except for two things, is basically
7:22
stock Android 15 which is lovely And then it has things like a headphone jack which is also on the HTC phone It has a SIM card tray and you could even put a micro SD card So if you want to expand the storage in your
7:38
T1 phone, you can. But yeah, I think when it gets the software here, and our pin number on this phone
7:45
is 1776. It's kind of playing the theme here. We basically have stock Android, stock Google apps
7:54
There's two apps that I noticed that were kind of pre-installed. One is called Doc Integrity, which I think I get as being a Trump mobile subscriber now
8:06
We get this service, and I've not used it yet. I haven't had a chance to explore
8:10
The other one is an app called Truth Social, and I'm not going to be coy about this
8:16
We know that this is an app that Trump himself uses as well as people and fans of Trump use
8:26
And it got created years ago when he was initially banned from Twitter at the time
8:32
So that's the only two details that this is tells that this is not like a stock Android phone
8:38
So that's a lot of information, Numi. I'm making weird voice sounds. No, no
8:42
So you mentioned Android 15. does that limit the lifespan if it's because we're at android 17 now um so when you are some
8:53
if someone is going to purchase this or pre-order this and we don't even know
8:57
if it'll ever come out we just have a a media rush copy as it were um what's the lifespan you
9:06
would determine from a even a two-year-old operating system and here this is okay so we
9:13
There's a couple of things we got to knowledge first. So let's talk really quick about review stuff. So Apple, Samsung, Google, all these companies do give out review units
9:21
usually like a week or two before the product goes on sale
9:24
There's nothing unordinary about that. But I don't know personally how much smartphone history and manufacturing
9:34
that Trump Mobile or the Trump Organization has. So that's the unknown here
9:42
Whereas Apple and all these other places, we have so many products we've seen
9:45
It's very dependable to be like, hey, they say it's coming out on this date
9:49
It likely will. There's very few exceptions to that. I just want to put that out there and be fair
9:56
The other thing I would say is if this is a rescanned HTC U24 Pro 5G, there's not a problem with that
10:06
But an issue that can happen is software support. And on some of the best Android phones, like ones from Samsung and Google, new phones like that get seven years of OS support
10:20
That's like seven major, like going from Android 17 to Android 18 and so on
10:24
And seven years of security patches that keeps everything nice and secure on your phone so you can use it safely
10:31
Right. We just reviewed the Motorola Razr. the low-end versions of those come out with three years of OS support and software and security
10:41
updates. So let's just take an average here. Let's take five years. So if this is based on a phone
10:47
from 2024, you can pretty easily do the math. We're already two years into that. So that would
10:53
give you maybe three more years' lifespan. And let me just also say something about Android 17
10:58
You know what? It just got – it's been in beta for a few months
11:02
It will roll out this summer probably when Samsung launches what we expect to be the full Z Fold 8 and Z Flip 8
11:11
and when Google launches the Pixel 11 series. But unlike iOS where we kind of see that drop and it hits all the old phones
11:18
Android has to go through not only the phone maker itself but also sometimes through carriers
11:23
So we are still seeing phones that got released earlier this year being upgraded to Android, or excuse me, late last year getting upgraded to Android 16
11:34
And it'll probably be this fall where we start seeing that generally fall on newer phones
11:39
So I will, like I said, we got to be fair here. But if this is based on a 2024 phone, you don't have to be a genius to figure out that the software support will be limited
11:49
and I should say that we don't have any word on what that software support is from Trump Mobile
11:55
Naturally. Okay. So I do have a question from YouTube comment, Paul Harrison, 8379. What is
12:03
the processor? I know you sort of name dropped it early on, but let's talk a little bit more about
12:07
the specs or the power. I know you only had this for a hot second. So we didn't do too much testing
12:13
yet. We didn't. So, and sometimes you'd be able to go into settings on an Android phone and
12:19
and take a look at details like what the processor chip is
12:24
what the RAM is, how big the battery is. I'm not able to find those details
12:28
but I am able to use some apps that can help me find some of them. I should say the HTC U24
12:35
whatever, I can't keep saying this. HTC U24 Pro 5G has a Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chip
12:45
and man, mobile people don't come at me in the comments If I got that wrong, I'm pretty sure that's the one it has
12:50
And let's talk half a second about that chip. It's a decent chip
12:54
It's not the fastest chip, but it's something we would expect to find in a $500 phone
13:00
Yeah, not bad. There's no acknowledgement from Trump Mobile or the packaging or the little handy
13:07
the book that came with the phone, the instruction manual, only in English, by the way
13:12
that mentions what the processor is. When I run a benchmark test like Geekbench 6, it scores very similarly to a Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chip, but it doesn't come out and say that
13:26
It does let me know that this phone has eight cores. So, again, that also would line up with that as well
13:36
And it also says 11 gigabytes, which I'm assuming is RAM. So we put that to an even number, it would be 12
13:43
So all that adds up to what the rumors are out there and adds up to the HTC U24 Pro 5G
13:51
Holy smokes. Who would have thought we're saying all these letters on a freaking live show
13:56
Yeah, but let's talk performance for half a second. So I did run a couple benchmark tests on here, and this performs okay
14:03
It performs about as fast as the brand-new – it just launched
14:09
We just dropped a review today by David Lum. The brand new Motorola Razr 2026 scores about the same as this phone
14:17
That phone cost $800, and it's Motorola's low-end Razr. And remember, since the Razr is a folding phone, it's going to cost a little bit more
14:27
But I did look back, what are some other phones about this price that this matches
14:31
We have the Pixel 10a from Google. That's $499. And that scored just a little bit higher, not much higher
14:37
but I would say in the ballpark is this. But if I try to go back to find a flagship phone
14:44
that matches this Geekbench score, I'm gonna look back not to 2025 or 2024 or 2023 or 2022
14:53
and I gonna start finding some Android phones like maybe the Pixel 6 Pro had similar scores to this So for a mid phone that cost I will be very fair
15:07
I think this processor is fine. But it's not going to break any LAN speed records
15:12
It doesn't have something that's going to compete with an iPhone, even let alone one from five or six years ago
15:18
I would also take one more thing about the processor is I ran
15:21
I checked out the graphics performance on this thing too. And it, too, scored similar to all those other phones
15:28
So even though I would normally want much more time to make a very bold and confident statement about the abilities of this phone, I think it's fine
15:43
For a mid-range phone, this performance is going to be fine. Longevity is a question
15:48
Chip like the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3, it prioritizes efficiency. and there's nothing wrong with that
15:55
Again, I think a lot of this is get ahead of it, man. We're going to make a $500 phone
16:00
It's going to have this processor that's very efficient and doesn't kill the battery life
16:04
And those are things I think a lot of people want. It's true
16:08
And there's a trend towards under consumption, right? So do we really need the latest and greatest all the time
16:15
the top tier? So having a mid-range selection. Sorry, Mimi. Having a mid-range phone in gold is, you know
16:26
Well, you know. Okay, so you mentioned the gold. Show me other design features
16:33
Show me the infamous flag, please. Oh, man. You're getting really on the spot here
16:40
So it's gold, and we had some arguments in the office here
16:45
I'm going to try to keep this very still for our camera person
16:48
So on the back, in this lighting, it looks like straw gold, kind of like Scrooge McDuck when he jumps into the coin pool gold, like cartoon gold
17:01
And in natural lighting, it looks a little more mustardy yellow. So it definitely, it's a plastic back, but it's kind of got this like iridescence to it
17:12
Um, the camera, uh, bump is an oval again, uh, has a three cameras, uh, an ultra wide
17:19
a telephoto, two X telephoto and a main camera. Uh, they have gold around the rings
17:25
There's kind of gold around the edging of the camera bump too
17:29
Uh, and then if you do forget what carrier this phone works on, you will be reminded
17:35
that it runs on Trump mobile. And if you forget by the time you get from the top of the phone to the bottom, they put
17:40
another reminder down here that it is indeed Trump Mobile. And yeah, so we have something
17:46
that's similar to the America flag. I counted, there are 50 stars, but it does appear that we
17:51
might be a little short on the stripage there. And also, again, to be fair, we have, how many
17:59
phones have I tested that have had Verizon or T-Mobile branded on the back? Granted, they didn't
18:04
have like a patriotic-ish theme they were going for, but it's there. So, but yeah, you got the
18:10
Trump flag, Trump mobile flag on the bottom. And what else would you like to see, Noomi
18:18
Honestly, I'm just, I'm really curious what two colonies you would have voted off if we were
18:24
only having 11 colonies. I feel like this is like a drinking game or something. What two colonies
18:29
would I vote off? I mean, they're all, we've kind of needed them all. So it's kind of hard to exclude
18:33
one or two. I mean, Rhode Island, really? Do we? Delaware, maybe? I don't know. I'm just joking
18:41
What you call me when you wrote off, Newman. I don't know. Oh, that's, you know what? I don't know. I don't know
18:49
Get me out of here, so New York. You know what the right answer is? I wouldn't throw any of the colonies
18:54
The right answer is there is no answer. Yeah, no, but it is, again, to be in fairness, that flag
19:01
if you look at the way the Trump Mobile logo is written
19:06
it does still remain kind of the heightened ratio of a regular American flag
19:13
And I do remind people that the original design of this, and somehow crumpled it, and I'll let our camera person catch up
19:22
Celso, if you don't mind, had kind of like a flowing American flag. Oh, great, we got some people there
19:28
A flowing American flag on it. And it also said, Make America Great Again
19:33
And this is like the wallpaper. But then the back of the phone had T1 really big and then had like the kind of like an earlier version of the American flag we're seeing now
19:44
So sadly, the wallpaper on here does not have the 1776. Does not have the it's just blue
19:59
It's a little more understated. It's a little more. Understated. Yeah. All right
20:06
So can you tell me about the process of pre-ordering? I have to do this because there was a question early on about is the $100 for the deposit refundable
20:17
Let me zoom back up to say who said that. It was BattleG2340 on YouTube
20:27
So tell me about the process of pre-ordering it. I know this is a review unit, so you got it faster
20:36
Yeah, it is curious. Like, so their pre-orders opened, I think like almost a year ago
20:43
like kind of right when they first announced it, right? And they were supposed to come out in August
20:47
you put a hundred dollar deposit down. And what that requires is, so I think the other thing
20:52
to talk about is there's the T1 phone is the actual name of the phone, Trump phone
20:57
and uh it's on trump mobile so they launched a 5g service um uh i hate to do this new me do
21:06
you know what an mvno is no actually okay so so think of it have you heard of like mint mobile
21:13
before yes of course yeah cool so that's an mvno and so there are hundreds of these uh uh small
21:20
little uh telecom companies and essentially they ride on the piggyback of networks of like verizon
21:26
or T-Mobile or AT&T, right? So for a while, there's been one called Liberty Mobile
21:33
And Liberty Mobile is an MVNO. And essentially, it's kind of like they have a
21:38
it's like they're a restaurant. They had like a pop-up restaurant that's Trump Mobile. Trump Mobile is like under their umbrella
21:44
is that's how the service is being provided. So when you go to pre-order
21:49
you have to set up a Trump Mobile account and you have to, of course
21:56
put in like credit card information and all that stuff. Some also, this comes with the phone, which is a SIM card
22:04
which is kind of, again, for all the things people might talk poorly about this phone
22:11
It's kind of neat to see them embracing some of the technology of yesterday
22:16
So this has its retro. It's called the 47 plan. And again, it costs 47, 45
22:24
I let the Easter eggs So then we put that in but we didn hear anything like a lot of people Our journey is a little convoluted too because we had a corporate card that then kind of got
22:38
switched out. And then our, so we had to put a new card in recently and all that. And that's at
22:44
the same time, our wonderful reporter, Corinne Reichhardt had been messaging Trump mobile twice
22:50
a week for months and finally got through and kind of connected the dots and was able to say
22:56
hey, we did pre-order this. Can you expedite it? And they offered to expedite our order. And they
23:01
did. And that is always a kind thing that these phone companies do. And I'm very appreciative of
23:07
that. And she was talking with their CEO, Pat O'Brien. So not the MBI guy
23:16
Fair enough. All right. So you've... Oh, refunds though, refunds. I don't know
23:21
I think that's, there's just some of those like, I think transparency that I think a lot of people just
23:26
you know, you go to the Apple store, you know there's a 14 day refund window
23:32
If they announce a new device, a lot of times they'll extend that window to kind of like, if you had bad timing
23:39
and you were on day 15, they announced a new iPhone, you might get it like a hundred dollar discount, right
23:43
And things like that. So it's unclear. I don't know if they've updated the website
23:47
And so that might have been updated, but I don't know off the top of my head
23:51
I did not see an official statement about their refund policy. Fair enough. All right. Let's see if we have any other questions
24:04
I'm curious. Honestly, I'm curious. So you've been filming with it a little bit
24:09
You've shot some test photos and things like that. How do you feel about it
24:15
In general, as a device, if we stripped away everything else, give me your thoughts
24:22
I mean, that's it, right? It's just like we have, like, it's so wrapped up into, like, an identity
24:33
It's so wrapped up in politics. Let's put it there. There's half of people probably watching the car accident
24:38
The other half is like, well, this is the phone I ordered, and they're excited about it
24:42
And it's, I think that's what's so complicated about it. And goodness gracious, there's so many problems in the world
24:51
It's just a damn phone, guys. That being said, yeah, if you did take away some of the ornamentation and politics behind it, it's a phone
25:00
It's a decent $500 phone. Would it be the, like, phone I recommend for most people
25:04
Probably not. Probably push you toward, like, something like the Pixel 10a
25:08
because that phone has, the cameras on that phone are definitely better than the cameras
25:15
There's more cameras on this, but more is not better. And, but there's nothing like fatal flaws that I've noticed in the day I've had this with the pictures I've taken
25:25
It does have a default watermark on that says T1 on the bottom left corner and they date in time
25:31
But you can turn that off. To be honest, other Android phones do that too. Calling it out red magic
25:36
They do that all the time. But, yeah, it's a decent phone
25:41
It does have things like, you know, even the headphone jack, it's on the top, right
25:45
I think we learned years ago that if we do have headphones, we'd want to plug it in on the bottom so the cable hangs down versus kind of like iPod style
25:53
You'd have it plugged in on the top there. Yeah. So and in terms of the cameras, there is AI
26:03
It's like an identification, scene identification mode. same stuff that we see on other phones we've seen for years uh nothing shocking there but the photos
26:12
aren't like super horrible there's no like uh gold filter or like ar that overlays me in the
26:18
white house or something like something silly like that it's a very straightforward phone in many ways
26:23
and whether that straightforwardness was a intentional choice or a cost savings choice
26:29
whoever gets these phones are will be all the better for it i think
26:34
Well, I do think it's interesting that it is essentially considered a mid-range price for a phone right now
26:44
Right. So they didn't they didn't try to say that this is an Apple competitor or anything like that, nor did they say that this is going to be a budget phone
26:52
They really left it right in the middle, which I think is kind of interesting commentary
26:57
Right. It's kind of saying like, oh, what what's what can we push in terms of marketing this
27:03
And for it being potentially a reskin of a two-year-old phone, I don't know
27:11
It makes a sort of sense of like, oh, if you were to purchase something like this, that would probably be the limit of what you would want, right
27:23
Well, and there's going to be people who are going to yell at me for making this comparison
27:27
But there are other new phones coming out that cost $500 that are from companies that have never made phones before
27:34
And one of the ones I'm most excited about is the Clix Communicator. Now, Clix is a company that made these keyboard cases for, like, the iPhone
27:42
You can get them for, like, Android phones now and everything. And they add basically, like, a BlackBerry-style keyboard to the bottom of your phone
27:49
And it's pretty fantastic. But they announced this phone called the Clix Communicator
27:54
and it's designed by an actual BlackBerry designer. And yeah, that thing does not have the best cameras
28:02
That phone does not have the top-of-the-line processor, but it has a lot of intentionality to that design
28:10
Its early renderings look very similar to the prototypes that keep coming out
28:15
that they keep showing us. We've seen all, it's kind of like they have shown us the bag of ingredients
28:21
that they got at the grocery store, and they've shown us kind of what the final meal will be
28:25
So we kind of know where we're going. So I think there's just been a lot of changes with this, right
28:28
So if you got this Trump phone because it was made in the USA, I'm so sorry, it's not
28:33
If you got this Trump phone because it was kind of looked a little bit like an iPhone
28:40
it doesn't, nor does it perform like one. And that's okay, but it's kind of the misdirection there
28:47
If you bought this phone because you support this family or this family's politics, that's okay
28:58
You get lovely branding on that, and you can enjoy that. You can log in to your true social
29:03
I don't think that's something that I would buy a phone to do
29:08
But if you did buy this phone because you think it's like the $500 phone to get, I would argue you might be able to find other ones
29:18
And if you're looking for, you want to be getting a phone that's unique and new, that's never existed before, I would have a lot of people looking at that Clix communicator phone too
29:26
See, my time's coming up because I'm talking about it. Well, let's end it this way then
29:33
What would be the $500 phone right now that you'd say, consider this
29:38
Yeah, I think if you're on Android, you get a lot of options, right
29:43
So we have the Pixel 10a and to be fair, it, man, this gets
29:48
how do I touch this and go quickly? Something has happened in the past year and that's AI
29:53
And AI has driven all these data centers and all these data centers need processors and RAM
29:59
and because of that there's been a ram shortage that's going on and because of that ram shortage
30:04
also known as ramageddon we've seen people and phone makers some really big ones like samsung
30:10
and motorola increase the price of their phones so the trump phone also has ram in it and while
30:18
they never said what the ram was going to be it does have 12 gigabytes it'll be curious to see if
30:22
if they're able to sustain or survive Ramageddon as well. But I bring all that up because one of the phones I'd recommend is the Google Pixel 10a
30:32
It's $500, but it's pretty much identical to the Google Pixel 9a that came out the year before
30:38
And that's because they wanted to keep the price the same, but that also meant they couldn't add a lot of new things or a lot of new hardware features, right
30:47
Another thing I would consider is getting a phone that's kind of like when people buy cars
30:52
Looking at one that's a couple years old, you're going to save a lot of money and you can find very good discounts
30:57
especially if you're someone who's into things like Prime Day or sales
31:02
Getting a Galaxy S25 Ultra or even the S24 Ultra would still be an amazing phone
31:09
You're still going to have, what, four to five years of software support on that
31:15
And you would probably get it for anywhere from $600, $700 on the cheap end
31:21
especially if you're getting one that's used or even refurbished. So that's something I'd recommend
31:25
And if you go on the Apple side, it gets tough, but Apple has their like affordable phone
31:30
and that's gonna be the iPhone 17 E and I'm gonna totally mess up the price
31:36
because I am on camera and I don know how much I spacing on the price I think it like at the starting price Again that has a very powerful processor that is only I think like a generation old
31:52
But again, if we're looking at the performance on this, I couldn't find an iPhone going back six years that this beats
32:01
Like, it's just that speaks more to the longevity of Apple's chips
32:05
But again, between the options of getting a used phone, getting an affordable Android phone, getting my recommendation is if the only thing you don't like about your phone is the battery, it costs like $100, $129 to replace that
32:22
And you'll get another two to three years of life out of your phone. I think that's a much more economical thing to do as well
32:29
And we're not having all this accoutrement. I should say there's a shout out to the, it would be horrible not to have this make an appearance
32:37
And this is the Freedom Phone. That's right. This launched in the first term of Trump's presidency
32:43
This is not by the Trump family formally. But the idea is this phone is censorship free, has uncancellable apps and decentralized identity
32:54
It was a take. The idea was this would take on the big tech giants, even though it's built on top of Android
33:04
And it's censorship free, even though it thankfully has protections against things like child pornography and things like that
33:11
But I think really what it built for is at the time Trump had been exiled off of Twitter and apps like True Social were being kicked out of the App Store on iOS and Android And this is a way to get that And again this was not made in the USA It was a Chinese phone kind of rebranded And now we have the 2026 version the Trump phone
33:37
So you know what? I have so many better phones I could talk about
33:42
and they do some cool things. And I'm sure there are friends of mine freaking out
33:47
that we're spending this much time on the Trump phone. There's a lot of curiosity around this thing
33:51
Again, it's just a phone. But at the same time, it's just a moment in time that our politics sometimes means more than our sensibilities
34:04
And I think some of this stuff comes at the cost of empathy
34:10
Some of this comes at the cost of true innovation. And some of this comes at the cost of a money grab
34:18
And hey, who better to risk the security issues than us versus the consumer
34:28
Well, I got to say, I did put this on our company's credit card and our company's account
34:34
So I'm sure the Ziff Davis IT team and financial team are being very challenged because allegedly all of our data of people who preordered the Trump phone
34:45
the T1 phone was leaked recently. And I just found that out and I don't know what that means for me
34:57
If we're getting shut down, it's going to be your fault, Patrick. I could blame someone else
35:05
I don't even have to say the name because I'm surrounded by the name. All right fair enough Well thank you so much for giving us this rundown Is there anything else you wanted to impart for the viewers for us
35:20
Hey, I got to say, you know what? We do a lot of phone coverage around here. So if you're entertained by this phone, there's so many better phones that we talk about
35:28
We got Razors that we just reviewed. We're getting ready to do a video on that. We got a Fitbit Air video coming up, which is pretty sweet with CNES, Vanessa Hand, Orianna
35:36
and we have a bunch of other amazing things for our all things mobile series on cnet and if you
35:43
at all got any entertainment value out of this video or factual value out of this video and i
35:49
hope you got both please give us a thumbs up or if you want to see more of me and new me and others
35:54
at cnet in our video family please subscribe to our youtube channel and you could do that for cnet
36:01
PCMag, Lifehacker ZDNet, Mashable You know who's a new friend of ours
36:07
Popular Science. Oh yeah. Like Infinity Stones. We're like Infinity Stones. Yeah
36:15
Who's Thanos then? Who gets to put the gauntlet? That's a very good question
36:19
Our social producer's raising her hand. She wants to be Thanos. Okay. Thanos is Faith
36:24
Love it. You know what? I wouldn't trust a snap to anybody else
36:29
Hey, can we say one shout out? Let's say you are someone who ordered a Trump phone
36:33
If you get it, let us know. If you don't have it yet, let us know. We really, politics aside, silly gold phone aside
36:42
people shouldn't get ripped off no matter what you believe in. And I just really hope that they get the phone they ordered
36:48
and we can live with that. There you go. Thanks, everyone. You're out
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