To Whom The RED Hydrogen One Fits

RED Hydrogen One is one of the most anticipated phones for a very long time now. Last year even rumors start to spread that RED phone is not happening. To break it the company called famous MKBHD to show media and public that they are serious about RED phone. Few days back RED conducted an event “RED Pioneers” to show the mysterious phone to the RED fans. It has lots of next-gen technologies inside it.

At a premium price tag that is even greater than iPhone X, it will be available from August. This post is to help the buyers whether you should get a RED hydrogen one or not. Before coming to the discussion let us first see the specs and special features of the phone so that we can come to a better conclusion.

RED Hydrogen One Specs

Since the RED Hydrogen one which is shown in the event is a prototype we’re not very much clear about the complete specs. From the hands-on we have a clear external specification and few internal specifications, you can see it clearly below

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2560 x 1440 (5.7-inch) Display which has their own Four view holographic technology
Beefy 4,500mAh battery
Snapdragon 835 processor (this might change to the latest version in public release)
Power Button which also acts as a fingerprint scanner, just like in the Sony Xperia devices
Dedicated Video recording button
Thankfully a regular Headphone jack
A universal USB-C port
Magnetic pins at the back for attaching mods

Not sure About the Android version and the RAM. For a phone like this, you can expect at least 4GB RAM and above.

Build Quality and Pricing

Build quality of the RED Hydrogen One is really great, sturdy, and durable. The sides have ridges and scallops like design to help you hold this big phone easily. Talking about the size, this phone is bigger than the iPhone 8 plus and other tall Android phones. The space is actually taken by the huge speaker grills at the top and bottom to give you stereo effects.

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The RED Hydrogen One is an all-metal phone, that comes in aluminum and titanium version. Based on the type you choose the pricing also changes. The pre-order price for aluminum version is $1,195 and the titanium version is $1,595. This price will go even higher based on the mods you are buying.

Speaking of the mods, as of now the RED Hydrogen One supports camera lens modules from other top brands as well, like Canon, Nikon, Fuji, Leica, and more.

Holographic Screen

The screen is the unique point of this phone, it is a 3D screen. The first phone to try 3D screen is Amazon Fire phone, which is a disaster, but the screen on RED Hydrogen One is fluid and far better than the Fire phone. The engineers back there explains that the phone has a dedicated special layer beneath the LCD screen, which directs the light in multidirectional instead of the standard bidirectional system. If you need you can switch this 4 view mode off and can use the phone normally. When this special layer combines with the data from two cameras and smart algorithm of RED you get a beautiful holographic image.

When I say holographic, don’t think that an array of light will be projected out of the screen like you have seen in films, the view with Hydrogen One is different. Sadly RED never allowed anyone to take a pic or video the screen, so we have to wait until August to see it. US carriers Verizon and AT&T are signed to support this device.

RED Ecosystem

Back to the discussion, to whom the RED Hydrogen One Fits. Definitely this is not a normal Android smartphone which we have used to. This one is a niche specific device that too in a very earlier stage. Those who are buying this device now are early adopters of an experimental device. From here the device will need to mature a lot, from day to day use only they will discover the challenges and it will be fixed in the next iterations.

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For example; iPhone X and the Apple Homepod. From the regular use only they discovered that the dot projector needs to be calibrated for regular use, like while driving and when your phone is on the desk. Similarly, RED Hydrogen one being the first iteration it will find many challenges in the real world scenarios.

Ok now let us see the USP- Unique selling point of this device. Number one is its new holographic screen and the other is the modular system. I feel holographic screen won’t bring any useful feature to any normal users, it will be a gimmick feature like Animoji, ya it is there, but people use it rarely. Talking about the modular system, as of now, the RED concentrates only on the camera lenses. Without any doubt, it will work flawlessly with the RED ecosystem and with other lens manufacturers we have to use it and see.

The reason why RED is entering the smartphone is to make an ecosystem. Sometimes you don’t need a big camera setup, but still, you might need a cinema quality footage or image. For this very reason, the RED Hydrogen One is making its debut. If this goes well, few years from today, you can combine the video you shoot on the RED Hydrogen one with the video you shoot on the high-end camera like EPIC or Weapon without any loss in quality.