Technologies

The Trump Phone Will Cost You $499. This Is What You Get and What We Don’t Know Yet

The president’s son Eric says the phone will be made in the US «eventually.»

The Trump Organization now has a wireless business, including a mobile phone plan and a $499 gold-hued phone.

On Monday, Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of US President Donald Trump, announced a new wireless venture centered on a service called Trump Mobile. According to the venture’s website, a wireless plan is available for $47.45 a month with unlimited talk, text and data and no long-term contract. The price of the service is a callout to Donald Trump’s two terms as president: 47 for his current presidency and 45 for his previous one, from 2017 to 2021. Those interested can use their own phone and number.

Trump Mobile is offering that $499 phone, called the T1, for preorder ahead of planned availability in September. It comes with a 6.8-inch AMOLED screen and runs the Android 15 operating system.

The Trump family licensed its name to the service.

The idea for a wireless service promoted around a celebrity or a brand may be an emerging trend. Just a week before the Trump Organization announcement, the popular SmartLess podcast launched its own service. The podcast is hosted by actors Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes.

Will the phone be made in the US or elsewhere?

In a statement about the service and new phone, the Trump Organization says it will offer customer support through call centers based in the US. The T1 phone is described as «designed and built in the United States.»

The statement doesn’t offer any additional details about sourcing for the phone’s manufacturing, but given supply chain realities, it’s likely that at least some components in the phone would come from another country, such as China. The Trump administration has been focused on having more manufacturing take place in the US, including pushing Apple to build iPhones here.

Francisco Jeronimo, vice president at International Data Corp., told CNBC on Tuesday that the phone could not be assembled or completely manufactured in the US. «That is completely impossible,» he said.

Eric Trump, the president’s younger son, said on Tuesday that the company will build phones in the US, but not right away.

«Eventually, all the phones can be built in the United States of America,» he said in an interview cited by Wired magazine.

President Trump has said he will impose a 25% tariff on all smartphones not made in the US, which would seem to include his own family’s proposed phone.

In addition to voice and data service, the Trump Mobile plan includes 24/7 roadside assistance through Drive America, telehealth and mental health support services, no credit check and free international calling to 100 countries, «including many with American military bases to help honor the families who are bravely serving in our military abroad.»

The wireless plan

Trump Mobile says the service will run using the networks of the three major US wireless carriers: AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon. To be more precise, it’s powered by Liberty Wireless Mobile, an MVNO — mobile virtual network operators don’t own the infrastructure but instead lease it from the big wireless providers and then resell it in their own packages.

As CNET’s Patrick Holland and Jeff Carlson point out, there are hundreds of US-based MVNOs for you to choose from, including Liberty Wireless, which offers its own $40-a-month plan. Right now, they say, there are still «too many unknowns» about the Trump Mobile plan to allow for a definitive assessment. Check out their breakdown of how Trump Mobile compares to some of the top alternatives.

Some details are confusing

CNET senior editor Mike Sorrentino noted that the site for the Trump phone went live with numerous errors and omissions.

It doesn’t list a processor, even under the headline marked «processor.» The storage and memory specs are mixed up, listing the RAM as 12GB of storage and the memory as 256GB of internal storage. The site mentions a «punch-hole AMOLED display,» which Sorrentino notes does not exist, using the term to refer to the space for the front-facing camera. Two separate sizes are given for the phone display. The site references a «5,000mAh long life camera,» but it appears to mean the battery. The battery-camera confusion has been corrected.

Meanwhile, the press release for the phone says it will be released in August, but the website says September.

Gulf of Mexico label on the map

The Trump Mobile site launched with a map showing its coverage area, but that map was pulled after people online noticed that the map used the name Gulf of Mexico for the body of water Trump calls the Gulf of America.

Reuters reviewed the website code and noted that the site seemed to be using T-Mobile’s network data for the coverage map, and that company uses the Gulf of Mexico name.

Trump announced the Gulf of America name change on his Inauguration Day in January. He also changed the name of the Alaskan mountain Denali to Mount McKinley. The Associated Press has said it will not use the Gulf of America name for the body of water.

A phone with a telehealth plan?

The press release promises the phone plan comes with «telehealth services, including virtual medical care, mental health support, and easy ordering and delivery for prescription medications.»

Don Hendrickson, a spokesperson for Trump Mobile, confirmed at the launch, saying the telehealth services were all included in the plan. As the New York Times notes, it’s not clear how a $47-a-month phone plan could afford to cover remote doctor visits and medication.

The Trump Mobile site says the telehealth program will require users to sign up with a third-party provider, Doctegrity.

The celebrity phone trend

The new offerings from Trump Mobile may receive a lot of publicity due to the president’s high profile and social media presence, but one wireless executive said they’re unlikely to create a major disruption for other wireless carriers.

«The US wireless market is over $300 billion a year, and it is not a zero-sum game. New entrants like Trump Mobile or SmartLess typically operate as mobile virtual network operators using infrastructure from the big three,» said US Mobile CEO Ahmed Khattak. Khattak’s company has served a million wireless customers and has ranked high among the wireless phone plans CNET has rated.

«They might carve out a niche based on branding or audience loyalty, but that doesn’t fundamentally change the economics or scale advantages of larger MVNOs or the big three carriers,» he says.

Khattak doesn’t believe the new Trump endeavor is a conflict of interest or presents a regulatory conflict because the president has the authority to appoint FCC commissioners.

«The FCC is an independent agency,» he says. «Commissioners are appointed by the president but confirmed by the Senate, and the FCC does not get involved in MVNO business agreements or commercial launches.»

The US Mobile CEO also doesn’t believe that the new company represents a new wave of celebrity wireless endorsements.

«If anything, that era is behind us,» he says. «Mint Mobile is often seen as a Ryan Reynolds story, but the reality is that its parent company, Ultra Mobile, was already the fastest-growing private company in America long before he joined.»

Khattak added: «Most celebrity MVNOs do not last because wireless is an operationally intense business with tight margins. This is not the next celebrity tequila or podcast trend.»

From Trump phones to Instant Pots, snow globes

The president did not appear for the Monday announcement at New York’s Trump Tower; his sons headed up publicity for the unveiling.

The Trump Organization is a holding company for the president’s business interests. According to Reuters, the president has reported $600 million worth of income from various deals and projects, including crypto coins, a sector of business his administration has been bullish on.

Recently, the news site Semafor reported that kitchen appliance company Instant Pot will offer a «45/47 Collaboration,» marking items with those numbers and the president’s «Make America Great Again» slogan. Semafor also reported that tableware and china company Lenox has proposed a line of Trump-related product, including snow globes and dinnerware with the president’s face.

Technologies

TMR vs. Hall Effect Controllers: Battle of the Magnetic Sensing Tech

The magic of magnets tucked into your joysticks can put an end to drift. But which technology is superior?

Competitive gamers look for every advantage they can get, and that drive has spawned some of the zaniest gaming peripherals under the sun. There are plenty of hardware components that actually offer meaningful edges when implemented properly. Hall effect and TMR (tunnel magnetoresistance or tunneling magnetoresistance) sensors are two such technologies. Hall effect sensors have found their way into a wide variety of devices, including keyboards and gaming controllers, including some of our favorites like the GameSir Super Nova.

More recently, TMR sensors have started to appear in these devices as well. Is it a better technology for gaming? With multiple options vying for your lunch money, it’s worth understanding the differences to decide which is more worthy of living inside your next game controller or keyboard.

How Hall effect joysticks work

We’ve previously broken down the difference between Hall effect tech and traditional potentiometers in controller joysticks, but here’s a quick rundown on how Hall effect sensors work. A Hall effect joystick moves a magnet over a sensor circuit, and the magnetic field affects the circuit’s voltage. The sensor in the circuit measures these voltage shifts and maps them to controller inputs. Element14 has a lovely visual explanation of this effect here.

The advantage this tech has over potentiometer-based joysticks used in controllers for decades is that the magnet and sensor don’t need to make physical contact. There’s no rubbing action to slowly wear away and degrade the sensor. So, in theory, Hall effect joysticks should remain accurate for the long haul.

How TMR joysticks work

While TMR works differently, it’s a similar concept to Hall effect devices. When you move a TMR joystick, it moves a magnet in the vicinity of the sensor. So far, it’s the same, right? Except with TMR, this shifting magnetic field changes the resistance in the sensor instead of the voltage.

There’s a useful demonstration of a sensor in action here. Just like Hall effect joysticks, TMR joysticks don’t rely on physical contact to register inputs and therefore won’t suffer the wear and drift that affects potentiometer-based joysticks.

Which is better, Hall effect or TMR?

There’s no hard and fast answer to which technology is better. After all, the actual implementation of the technology and the hardware it’s built into can be just as important, if not more so. Both technologies can provide accurate sensing, and neither requires physical contact with the sensing chip, so both can be used for precise controls that won’t encounter stick drift. That said, there are some potential advantages to TMR.

According to Coto Technology, who, in fairness, make TMR sensors, they can be more sensitive, allowing for either greater precision or the use of smaller magnets. Since the Hall effect is subtler, it relies on amplification and ultimately requires extra power. While power requirements vary from sensor to sensor, GameSir claims its TMR joysticks use about one-tenth the power of mainstream Hall effect joysticks. Cherry is another brand highlighting the lower power consumption of TMR sensors, albeit in the brand’s keyboard switches.

The greater precision is an opportunity for TMR joysticks to come out ahead, but that will depend more on the controller itself than the technology. Strange response curves, a big dead zone (which shouldn’t be needed), or low polling rates could prevent a perfectly good TMR sensor from beating a comparable Hall effect sensor in a better optimized controller.

The power savings will likely be the advantage most of us really feel. While it won’t matter for wired controllers, power savings can go a long way for wireless ones. Take the Razer Wolverine V3 Pro, for instance, a Hall effect controller offering 20 hours of battery life from a 4.5-watt-hour battery with support for a 1,000Hz polling rate on a wireless connection. Razer also offers the Wolverine V3 Pro 8K PC, a near-identical controller with the same battery offering TMR sensors. They claim the TMR version can go for 36 hours on a charge, though that’s presumably before cranking it up to an 8,000Hz polling rate — something Razer possibly left off the Hall effect model because of power usage.

The disadvantage of the TMR sensor would be its cost, but it appears that it’s negligible when factored into the entire price of a controller. Both versions of the aforementioned Razer controller are $199. Both 8BitDo and GameSir have managed to stick them into reasonably priced controllers like the 8BitDo Ultimate 2, GameSir G7 Pro and GameSir Cyclone 2.

So which wins?

It seems TMR joysticks have all the advantages of Hall effect joysticks and then some, bringing better power efficiency that can help in wireless applications. The one big downside might be price, but from what we’ve seen right now, that doesn’t seem to be much of an issue. You can even find both technologies in controllers that cost less than some potentiometer models, like the Xbox Elite Series 2 controller.

Caveats to consider

For all the hype, neither Hall effect nor TMR joysticks are perfect. One of their key selling points is that they won’t experience stick drift, but there are still elements of the joystick that can wear down. The ring around the joystick can lose its smoothness. The stick material can wear down (ever tried to use a controller with the rubber worn off its joystick? It’s not pleasant). The linkages that hold the joystick upright and the springs that keep it stiff can loosen, degrade and fill with dust. All of these can impact the continued use of the joystick, even if the Hall effect or TMR sensor itself is in perfect operating order.

So you might not get stick drift from a bad sensor, but you could get stick drift from a stick that simply doesn’t return to its original resting position. That’s when having a controller that’s serviceable or has swappable parts, like the PDP Victrix Pro BFG, could matter just as much as having one with Hall effect or TMR joysticks.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Feb. 18, #513

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Feb. 18, No. 513.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition has a fun yellow category that might just start you singing. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: I don’t care if I never get back.

Green group hint: Get that gold medal.

Blue group hint: Hoops superstar.

Purple group hint: Not front, but…

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Heard in «Take Me Out to the Ball Game.»

Green group: Olympic snowboarding events.

Blue group: Vince Carter, informally.

Purple group: ____ back.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is heard in «Take Me Out to the Ball Game.» The four answers are Cracker Jack, home team, old ball game and peanuts.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is Olympic snowboarding events. The four answers are big air, giant slalom, halfpipe and slopestyle.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is Vince Carter, informally. The four answers are Air Canada, Half-Man, Half-Amazing, VC and Vinsanity.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ____ back. The four answers are diamond, drop, quarter and razor.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Wednesday, Feb. 18

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Feb. 18.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s Mini Crossword is a fun one, and it’s not terribly tough. It helps if you know a certain Olympian. Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.