The Verge Goes Hands-On With the 'Wildly Ambitious' RED Hydrogen One Smartphone (theverge.com)

It's been almost a year since RED, a company known for its high-end $10,000+ cameras, teased a smartphone called the RED Hydrogen One. Several months have passed since the phone was announced and we still don't know much about it, aside from it having a very industrial design and "Hydrogen holographic display." Earlier this week, AT&T and Verizon confirmed that they'll launch the device later this year. Now, The Verge's Dieter Bohn has shared his hands-on impressions with the device, which he claims to be "one of the most ambitious smartphones in years from a company not named Apple, Google, or Samsung." Here's an excerpt from the report: The company better known for high-end 4K cameras with names like "Weapon" and "Epic-w" isn't entering the smartphone game simply to sell you a better Android phone. No, this phone is meant to be one piece of a modular system of cameras and other media creation equipment -- the company claims it will be "the foundation of a future multi-dimensional media system." To that end, it has a big set of pogo-pins on the back to connect it to RED's other cameras also to allow users to attach (forthcoming) modules to it, including lens mounts. If it were just a modular smartphone, we'd be talking about whether we really expected the company to produce enough modules to support it.

RED is planning on starting with a module that is essentially a huge camera sensor -- the company is not ready to give exact details, but the plan is definitely more towards DSLR size than smartphone size. Then, according to CEO Jim Jannard, the company wants any traditional big camera lens to be attached to it. Answering a fan question, he joked that support for lenses will be "pretty limited," working "just" with Fuji, Canon, Nikon, Leica, and more. [...] The processor inside will be a slightly-out-of-date Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, but it seemed fast enough in the few demos I was able to try. Honestly, though, if you're looking to get this thing just as a phone, you're probably making your decision based on the wrong metrics. It's probably going to be a perfectly capable phone, but at this price (starting at $1,195) what you're buying into is the module ecosystem.

Comments

Hasn't been this much excitement about Hydrogen

[JoeyRox]

since the Hindenburg....

Re:Hasn't been this much excitement about Hydrogen

[Dutch Gun]

I do like that, design-wise, they're not simply copying the iPhone. The price is absurdly expensive and I'm not interested in high-end camera accessories, so I'm not in the least bit interested in this, but I think I like the way it looks at first glance. It's pretty distinctive. I'm not sure why people keep trying the 3D holography gimmick, though.

fixed

[sheramil]

"It's probably going to be a perfectly capable phone, but at this price (starting at $1,195) what you're buying into is bragging rights. "

This looks pretty cool

[SuperKendall]

This is honestly the first Android phone that has appealed to me much, because of the really impressive camera and the module system. Plus the RED guys really seem to do a great job with hardware design... I came super close to pre-ordering one hoping I could use it for a trip in January, though I'm kind of glad I did not since it's still not even shipping yet. :-)

Niche

[Anonymous Coward]

It's certainly no iphone or Samsung killer. Your average person has no use for it, and big corporations already have better tech. But for the niche audience of indy A/V people like me, it sounds really interesting.

Re:Niche

[green1]

Near as I can tell I'm not really it's target market, and I don't want one, but I am glad someone is entering the market with something different. Line up all the flagship phones from all the manufacturers right now and they're all almost identical. Nothing at all to set them apart from eachother, and nobody has released any feature that counts as exciting in a very long time. I don't want to buy this phone, but I do want other manufacturers to actually compete with it. We may yet see some innovation in an extremely stagnant industry.

I don't think that matters so much

[SuperKendall]

then it should have the fastest processor as well.

If you were building a $1k gaming phone, then I would agree with you...

But for a phone specialized around photography, the CPU doesn't matter as much as GPU, and just overall system architecture. Can it capture and edit 4K footage well? That's a much more important issue than mere CPU specs. A phone like this rides way more on how well it functions, than absolute specs...

I personally think it looks like it could be really interesting to have such a highly programmable compact camera with really high quality output.

Re:Does hit have a screen?

[Ecuador]

They signed an NDA and are not allowed to show the screen. This has not stopped some people from showing it though. The idea is that the screen itself is not impressive, "just" a 5.7" display in a huge body, at a time when expensive phones tend to go very thin-bezel, so photos of the front make this expensive device look like a "blast from the past". The basic gimmick, err, feature of the phone's screen, which is the pseudo-3D effect cannot show in images, so they believe they need to build a whole narrative before showing the screen to people, to a void "$1200 for this crap?".
Because, indeed, you will not buy this phone for the display, or the cpu, or even the "holographic" effect gimmick, it isn't supposed to be worth its price as a just a phone, so only when we get a look at what this connectivity/modules/ecosystem comprises of exactly, will we know if it is an interesting device. Judging from how they are doing with their cameras, they might have a few tricks up their sleeve.
That said, they still could put a bit larger display compared to the size of that phone, especially now when everyone and their mother has a bezel-less phone.

Re:No display pictures - no belief in the hype

[Kjella]

Do you need to read more than "blanket ban on taking any photos or video of the front of the phone" to know that the emporer has no clothes? If they cannot show the public how "great" their only "new, distinguishing feature" is by now, it is certain to be embarrasingly underwhelming.

Is it any surprise that a 3D effect can't be presented well in a 2D photo? Maybe you don't know Red as it's hardly a household name, but they've made a business selling $10k-$100k cameras to Hollywood and is second only to Arri in that market. And before that, Jim Jannard became a billionaire on Oakley sunglasses that he founded. This is not some scam or a fool with a fancy presentation. I don't know if this is a winner, as I think the whole 3D/VR/AR/Hologram market is seriously overhyped but somebody with lots of money and lots of successful experience think they have a business case. Which means there's a lot more to this than smoke and mirrors. Though to be honest I don't think Red knows how to make anything at mainstream prices, like they don't make $1000 cameras or $100 camera modules for phone. It's a $1000+ phone and it'll probably be as niche as their cameras, but they make money so I don't see why this can't. It just needs to deliver something unique to justify the price.