‘The most entertaining durability test video I

• JerryRigEverything has performed a teardown and durability test on the Trump phone
• This revealed that it’s so similar to an HTC phone you can even swap their motherboards
• The Trump phone did at least survive the durability tests

It was starting to feel like we wouldn’t have to hear any more about the Trump Mobile T1, but a new durability test has confirmed what we already largely knew — namely that it’s little more than a rebranded HTC.

A previous teardown from iFixit revealed that the Trump phone had essentially identical specs and components to the HTC U24 Pro — a mid-range Taiwanese phone from 2024. The design is ever so slightly different, with the Trump phone having a different camera housing and a gold paint job, but the dimensions are the same too.

Now, though, JerryRigEverything has gone a step further, revealing that not only is the internal layout the same, right down to the number of screws, but if you swap the Trump phone’s motherboard with the HTC U24 Pro’s, both phones still work.

So the Trump phone really is almost a carbon copy of that HTC handset — rather calling into question its claims of being “proudly American.”

Passes the durability test

The only upside to all this is that, by essentially being an HTC U24 Pro, the Trump phone matches that device for durability. It survived being bent in multiple directions, seemingly has effective water resistance, and has a screen that’s just as scratch-resistant as most modern smartphones.

So if you have bought one of these devices, then at least it might last you a while — but that’s likely more down to designers and engineers in Taiwan than anyone in the US.

And even if you haven’t bought one, the video is worth a watch, targeting as it does not just the phone but the entire Trump administration, to the point where one Reddit commenter described it as “the most entertaining durability test video I’ve ever seen”.

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James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.