RED Hydrogen prototype phone gets shown off in new video

A few weeks ago, RED, the well-known high-end digital camera company, announced plans to launch its own Android smartphone, the RED Hydrogen. Today, a new video posted by noted YouTube tech personality Marques Brownlee showed off a non-working prototype of the RED Hydrogen, along with some early impressions of its potentially unique “holographic” display.

As shown in the video, the non-working “fit-and-finish” prototype phone has three panels in the rear. The top panel will have the RED Hydrogen’s dual rear cameras, with a noticeable bulge, and is made of kevlar. The middle panel is metal and has a cool looking RED logo near the bottom with a red circle that kind of looks like they embedded some kind of mystical jewel or light in it. The bottom panel is also made of kevlar and contains the magnetic pins similar to the ones found in the Motorola Moto Z2 Force and the rest of the Moto Z family. They will be used by RED to extend the Hydrogen’s functions via snap-on modular accessories.

In fact, near the end of his video, Brownlee showed an example of what one of these snap-on mods might look like to help extend the RED Hydrogen’s photo and video capabilities. RED is clearly aiming this phone to be used by serious video makers.

The video shows that the sides of the RED Hydrogen will have notches, which are designed to help people hold this rather large phone. How big is it? One part of the video showed that the Hydrogen was noticeably larger than the OnePlus 5 and the iPhone 7 Plus, which may make it difficult for some people to hold in one hand. One side will have a power button which will also serve as a fingerprint reader for the phone, along with a dedicated video button. The other side will have the phone’s two volume control buttons.

On the front, the RED Hydrogen will have two speakers on the bottom, and at the bottom there will be a USB Type-C port for charging. The video also shows a headphone jack, but the video says that RED plans to move that jack up to the top of the phone in the final design.

The display of the RED Hydrogen will be 5.7 inches in size. Brownlee is shown checking out the mysterious “holographic” display in a separate working prototype of the phone, but his video blurs out what this device looks like. The holographic display will be able to show content in some kind of 3D visuals without the need to wear glasses.

RED plan to reveal even more info on it Hydrogen phone sometime in the next 30 to 45 days. In the meantime, the company is still taking pre-orders for the phone, which is priced at $1,195 for an aluminum body or $1,595 for the titanium version. It’s scheduled to start shipping sometime in the first quarter of 2018.

What are your thoughts on the RED Hydrogen now that you have seen more of it? Let us know in the comments!