RED is making a smartphone that lets you watch VR content without glasses

RED, a company that has built their name on making amazing high-end cameras, is now making a smartphone. It’s called the Hydrogen One and its unique selling feature isn’t the smartphone’s camera.

It’s the screen.

RED are calling the Hydrogen One the “world’s first holographic media machine”, whatever that means, and claims to change the smartphone game forever.

There are, unfortunately, no hard specs about what processor, RAM, storage or battery the Hydrogen One will be featuring. The only thing RED did reveal was the fact that the Hydrogen One will have a 5.7-inch holographic display that features “nanotechnology that seamlessly switches between traditional 2D content, holographic multi-view content, 3D content and interactive games”.

According to the blurb, RED Hydrogen One will allow users to view 2D content and normal full-screen resolution, view RED Hydrogen 4-View content (.h4v), view stereo 3D content as well as 2D/3D/VR/AR/MR content.

Basically, it looks like this screen is the only smartphone screen you will ever need for any kind of viewing. What’s really interesting is that RED says you won’t need any kind of glasses. Yes, apparently you don’t need glasses to view VR content.

Whatever it means, RED founder Jim Jannard seems really confident about his company’s new smartphone.

“Our display is technology you haven’t seen before. It is not lenticular, which is inferior tech in every way, has been tried many times before and failed for good reason.

“It is incredible. It is multi-view (4-view) as compared to stereo 3D (2-view). Watching shocked faces light up when people see it is really motivating. There is no good way to describe it until you see it. Hopefully we will get some skeptics eyes on it soon… then they can tell you,” he wrote on the Reduser forum.

RED’s product image that they released of the Hydrogen One is pretty cryptic, but thanks to some tweaking, here’s a clearer image of the smartphone:

Besides that, one other tidbit is that the RED Hydrogen One will be modular, sort of like how their cameras are modular too. In smartphone terms, it seems safe to assume that it will be along the lines of the Moto Z or Essential Phone.

But that’s not all. Remember how we said the camera wasn’t going to be a talking point about the RED Hydrogen One, well we meant it. In fact, Jannard wrote that these cameras will NOT produce cinema quality images and that no smartphone could.

Instead, the Hydrogen One would lean on its modularity and allow users to attach modules from the Hydrogen System like attachments that will allow for higher quality pictures and videos. Hydrogen One will also somehow integrate into the professional RED camera program and work together with the Scarlet, EPIC and Weapon systems as a user interface and monitor.

Now, though, we get to the truly shocking part of this smartphone and that’s its price tag. The device will come in two variants, the first is the Aluminium variant and it’s up for pre-orders now for USD1,195 (around RM5,136). If Aluminium is too pedestrian for you, you can opt for the titanium version but that pre-order will set you back USD1,595 (around RM6,855).

For those who are unfamiliar with RED, they’re a company that makes super high-end cinema-grade cameras that cost USD50,000 for just the body and the sensor. Popular YouTubers like MKBHD, LinusTechTips and Dave2D as well as big-screen cinematographers often use these cameras for their video work. A lot of it is down to RED’s colour science and their RAW format.

[SOURCE, VIA]