I held the Trump phone

Where’s the Trump phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week. We’ve reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump phone’s whereabouts. We don’t have the phones we preordered yet, but this week included an unexpected in-person encounter with the T1.You see a lot of interesting phones when you’re among tech journalists.I’m thinking of two in particular that I held this past week: One was solid gold, with ornate engravings. It was elaborately embellished, heavy — an actual work of art. The other was the Trump phone.I know. The Trump phone. The one announced almost a year ago that has shipped to almost nobody. But when you associate with tech enthusiasts from all over the country, you find some rare things. And suffice to say that someone managed to get this incredibly rare device. They weren’t supposed to be showing it around, but they let me hold it for a few minutes recently.The Trump phone is fairly light, with all the earmarks of a midrange Android device. It has curved sides reminiscent of Motorola Edge phones from previous years and a plastic back panel. The American flag and Trump Mobile inscription are gigantic and impossible to miss. The gold color treatment reads as, I’m sorry to say, pee-ish in certain lighting. It comes with a small, printed user manual in the box, which is sort of adorable.This week, iFixit confirmed what we all knew deep in our hearts: The Trump phone is just a midrange HTC phone with a gold color treatment. Aside from coming with Truth Social predownloaded (you can uninstall it), it looks and feels exactly how I would expect a phone of that ilk to look and feel.As it happens, I met a tech YouTuber who goes by Technical Guruji in the same week, who also had a gold phone. But this wasn’t just a gold paint job. It was solid gold, custom engraved with an image of the Hindu god Ram and his devotee Hanuman. I can’t say I live a solid gold iPhone kind of lifestyle, but running my fingers over the elaborate engravings it was obvious how much painstaking work went into making it.The gold iPhone that I held is one in a series of one. The Trump phone is one of… some? It seems that only a handful of reporters and influencers have gotten the phone, which was supposed to start shipping to customers last month. We haven’t gotten the phone that we preordered almost exactly a year ago. Neither have most other paying customers. The Trump phone is sort of close to being real, but for now, it’s only slightly easier to come by than an actual solid gold phone.Got inside information on Trump Mobile or the Trump phone? Reach out securely from a personal device to tips@theverge.com, or see our How to Tip Us page.Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Allison Johnson