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12 hours ago
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is a news editor with over a decade’s experience in journalism. He previously worked at Android Police and Tech Advisor.
Bad news if you didn’t lock in a Trump phone at launch: It now costs $749, a $250 increase on its price at launch. The T1 Phone itself hasn’t changed.
Trump Mobile didn’t announce the price increase, instead quietly changing its website overnight. This wasn’t a total surprise though, especially given the phone ships with an unexpectedly generous 512GB of storage and 12GB of RAM. When I spoke to two Trump Mobile executives earlier this year, they called the $499 launch pricing “introductory,” and a few months later, the website itself was changed to reflect that, calling it a “promotional price.” That wording is now gone.
When I reviewed the Trump phone in July, I wasn’t especially impressed, even at $499. At $749 there is absolutely no reason recommend it. You could buy an iPhone 17E or Galaxy S26 FE and have $50 left over to buy a gold case; $50 more would net you an older flagship like the iPhone 16 or Pixel 10. Any one of these phones would blow the T1 Phone out of the water.
To my surprise, my Trump phone has received some support since it launched. There’s been exactly one software update, moving it from Android’s February 2026 security patch to the May 2026 version. It’s still running Android 15 though, which is now two years old.
While the Trump phone officially started shipping in May, almost a year after it was announced, it remains unclear just how many customers have received their phones. A report from the BBC last month found that at least some buyers still say their phones never arrived.
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