Zack Nelson swaps the Trump T1's motherboard into an HTC, and both phones boot
JerryRigEverything's usual scratch, burn and bend routine turns into a test of the phone's "Made in USA" promise, borrowed phone included.
JerryRigEverything
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Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 3,090,530 views a day, 16 times a normal first day on this channel (199,364).
Trump Phone Durability Test - Its worse than we thought...
Video summary
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- 0:00Nelson unboxes the gold Trump Mobile T1, with its packaging, cable and charger.
- 0:54He lines it up beside an HTC U24 Pro and compares the dimensions and design details.
- 2:18The scratch test leaves marks at Mohs level six and deeper grooves at seven.
- 3:04A blade scrapes the frame, a school bus is carved into the back, and he counts the flag's stripes.
- 5:54The bend test goes both ways; whether it snaps is shown here.
- 7:51He swaps the motherboards between the T1 and the HTC, then boots both phones.
Zack Nelson opens his JerryRigEverything video by setting up the question he wants to test: "So the president of the United States just launched his own smartphone and promised us that it's made in the USA." Less than a minute later, the gold Trump Mobile T1 is lying next to an HTC U24 Pro. Nelson describes that phone as Taiwanese-designed and Chinese-manufactured, and points out that the two match in dimensions and design details.
The usual durability routine follows. The screen scratches at level six on the Mohs hardness picks, with deeper grooves at seven. The blade carves a school bus into the back panel, and a flame goes to the back and the OLED display. Nelson also notices that the flag on the T1's branding has 11 stripes, not 13. When he bends the phone, it holds. "The phone does survive," he says, "and let's hope the great American experiment does as well." He also mentions that he borrowed this particular phone from Linus.
The teardown is where the title earns its "worse than we thought." Nelson says the inside of the T1 is identical to the HTC. To prove it, he swaps the motherboards between the two phones, reassembles both and powers them on. Both work.
The video ends with Nelson urging viewers to register and vote. The description goes further, saying outright that Trump lied about the phone and naming candidates Nelson backs in seven states.
It reached about 1.5 million views in its first eight hours. In that time it also drew more comments than a typical JerryRigEverything video gets in a full day. It arrives at the end of a week Nelson spent on Apple's iPhone Duo, and that durability test has passed 13 million views.
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- Channel
- JerryRigEverything
- Subscribers
- 10,200,000 ▲ 100,000 this week
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 32,683,930
- Video published
- October 28, 2026
- Video views so far
- 1,524,534 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 3,090,530
The numbers
The video's start runs far ahead of a usual JerryRigEverything upload, and its comment section filled faster than usual too.
💡 Test your knowledge
In which country is HTC, the maker of the U24 Pro, headquartered?
HTC is a Taiwanese electronics company based in Taoyuan, which fits Nelson's description of the U24 Pro as Taiwanese-designed.