Where’s the elusive Trump phone? It’s a question we’ve been asking weekly, and finally, we have some answers. After consistently reaching out, we were granted an interview that sheds light on its mysterious journey.

In a surprising turn, Trump Mobile’s T1 Phone is indeed real—or at least on the cusp of becoming so. During an engaging hour-long video call with two executives from the company, I glimpsed the much-discussed device and learned about the reasons behind its delays, the shifting specifications, and its prospective release timeline.

My conversation was with Don Hendrickson, who had previously been unresponsive, and Eric Thomas, two of the trio leading Trump Mobile. The phone I was shown wasn’t the final production model, but it’s reportedly close. Interestingly, the T₁ logo, a staple since the initial renders, will be omitted before the phone’s official launch. However, the American flag and the distinctive gold finish are here to stay.

This latest version of the Trump phone deviates noticeably from the one teased eight months ago. Gone is the iPhone-like camera triangle, replaced by a trio of lenses arranged vertically on an oval black island, proudly branded with “Trump Mobile.” Upon closer inspection, the lenses appear unevenly spaced, a design choice that stands out.

Other notable changes differentiate it from the initial announcement in June 2025 and subsequent spec sheet alterations on their website. The phone now appears larger, featuring a “waterfall” display that harks back to the originally promised 6.78-inch screen—different from the later 6.25-inch model.

The device is set to run on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 series chipset, typically found in upper-midrange smartphones. It boasts a significant 5,000mAh battery, 512GB of storage, and supports up to 1TB microSD cards. While detailed camera specifications are still under wraps, I’ve learned that both the front-facing and main rear cameras feature 50-megapixel sensors. A glimpse of the camera interface hints at the inclusion of an ultrawide lens and possibly a telephoto lens, neither of which were previously mentioned.

“This actual phone does spec with the top-of-the-line phones in the market this year,” Thomas says, later claiming it will be comparable to “any phone that’s over $1,000.” I’m not entirely sure that’s true, given you can find comparable specs, even the 50-megapixel selfie camera, in the OnePlus Nord 5, which ships with 512GB storage in the UK for £499 — around $679. Much will depend on camera performance and whether it includes flagship touches like waterproofing or wireless charging, which I don’t yet know. But it is true that some specs — the selfie camera resolution, the storage capacity, the ultrawide lens — are improved from the T1 Phone we saw (or didn’t) at launch.

To reflect that alleged improvement in quality, a price hike is coming. Hendrickson is quick to emphasize that everyone who placed a $100 deposit already (he wouldn’t tell me how many had done so) will still pay $499 total, but they’re now calling that an “introductory price.” Later buyers will pay more, though “less than $1,000” is all the pair would confirm, with the final price apparently still to be decided.

So why all the changes? To hear Thomas and Hendrickson put it, there was so much interest in the T1 Phone that it only felt right to make the phone better by jumping forward a little in their long-term plans. “Let’s skip our first initial entry-level phone that we were going to kind of introduce and be quick to the market,” Thomas says of the company’s thinking following the early media attention. “Let’s take our time and do what we were planning to be the next step.”

The pair suggest the decision to re-spec the phone is behind some, though not all, of its delays — the T1 Phone is now six months late to launch. Still, they say it’s coming soon. The phone has apparently cleared FCC certification (itself supposedly slowed by the government shutdown) and is now awaiting certification with T-Mobile, expected to complete sometime in mid-March. After that, Thomas says the company will be ready to ship phones to early buyers, though he’s hesitant to commit to an exact date. For a phone that was first promised for August or September, then by the end of 2025, and still only says “later this year” on the official website, I would take any launch timeline with a fistful of salt.

Still, it sounds like we’ll see more soon regardless. The two executives promise that a Trump Mobile “relaunch” is coming, and that within “the next couple of weeks” the website will be updated with images of the final phone, along with its spec sheet. Our long wait is nearly over.

Of course, there’s one thing the T1 Phone won’t be: made in the USA. Instead, the handsets go through “final assembly” in Miami, though Thomas is careful not to say too much about what that means. It’s more than “slapping a cover on the phone,” and apparently involves putting together the final 10 or so pieces. The pair won’t say where the bulk of the phone is assembled prior to that, only that it’s done in a “favored nation,” which essentially seems to be a way of saying “not China.”

To call a product “made in the USA” you have to meet certain standards, laid down and enforced by the FTC. The Trump Mobile site instead currently promises that there are “American hands behind every device,” and Thomas says that the wording was chosen because they “want to be upfront and not misleading at all to people.” He admits that there “might have been something put on the website” in error at launch (in this case, a huge homepage banner that said the T1 is “MADE IN THE USA” and a press release that said it’s “proudly designed and built in the United States”), but that since then “we’ve kind of stayed away from that.”

Full assembly in the US is still what the pair call a “goal,” though, one they’re apparently working on for future phones like the T1 Ultra — yes, that’s apparently real too, though they wouldn’t tell me much more about it.

I guess we’ll have to keep waiting, but until then: The Trump phone is real (ish), I’ve seen it (sort of), and it’s finally going to launch next month (maybe).

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