Take a First Look at RED Hydrogen One

Although we're quick to take jabs at RED for its active hype machine, admittedly we fall for the company’s ubiquitous PR tactics, too. Just today, we covered the RED RAVEN’s availability in Apple stores, and last month, we bit when the company teased and then announced its forthcoming Hydrogen One, a full holographic smartphone that allows you to view 2D and 3D VR and AR.

Today, the first public look at the Hydrogen has been released as a video by YouTuber Marques Brownlee (who goes by “MKBHD”), who got his lucky hands on a prototype. True to form, the video doesn’t give us what we really want—footage shot by the reportedly “revolutionary” phone camera—but it does give a good sense of the phone body’s exterior and materials.

The rugged body appears to have some features that will be convenient for filmmakers, like a dedicated video record button and pins at the back for snap-on modifications that add to the phone’s functionality, such as the sensor and lens mount displayed in the video.

MKBHD extolls the virtues of the unit as a potential pocket cinema camera, with a Helium-based system that “should outperform other mirrorless cameras and small DSLRs in an even smaller package.”

Still, until we see some footage and perform real camera tests, we really have no way of knowing whether the roughly $1,500 Hydrogen will be a worthwhile alternative to either much less expensive smartphones or much more expensive cameras.

What would RED need to show you to convince you to add a Hydrogen to your kit? Let us know in the comments.

Featured image by Marques Brownlee