iFixit Trump cellphone teardown confirms it’s an HTC dupe

After getting its palms on a Trump cellphone and tearing it aside, iFixit has confirmed what I first reported again in February: the T1 Phone is an virtually actual duplicate of the HTC U24 Pro.

iFixit partnered with NBC to pay money for the community’s media pattern of the Trump cellphone, together with a U24 Pro. They ran the telephones by means of a CT scanner, tore them all the way down to elements, and even put them again collectively right into a useful Frankenstein cellphone with the U24 Pro’s board contained in the T1 Phone’s chassis, confirming alongside the way in which that the 2 telephones are functionally equivalent.

There are minor variations: The flash has been moved barely, the speaker grille was tweaked, and the chipset bundle — whereas the identical in specs — was equipped by Micron for the Trump cellphone, and SK Hynix for the HTC. The larger change is to the battery: The Trump cellphone’s cell is barely bigger and made within the Philippines somewhat than China, although helps slower 30W charging.

We’d lengthy suspected that the T1 Phone matched the U24 Pro, given each telephones share a particular chassis design, virtually equivalent specs, and matching headphone jacks and microSD card slots. iFixit’s work right here nearly confirms that.

HTC beforehand advised The Verge that it “does not design or manufacture phones for third parties,” however wouldn’t affirm any particulars in regards to the manufacturing of the U24 Pro. Given that HTC offered most of its smartphone enterprise to Google in 2017, it appears probably that it contracted a third-party firm to design and manufacture the U24 Pro, and Trump Mobile turned to the identical firm for its T1 Phone. And as I reported final week, the U24 Pro was made in China. Place your bets now on the place the Trump cellphone is made.

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