Red, the popular digital camera manufacturer has announced its first ever Smartphone, the Hydrogen One. The phone that the company is touting as “world’s first holographic media machine” is expected to arrive in early 2018. The company has set the starting pricing for the Android Smartphone at $1,195.
The Smartphone is said to feature a 5.7 inch Hydrogen holographic display with nanotechnology. The teaser image of the phone shows a 3.5 mm audio jack, USB Type-C port and connector pins for modules. The phone is set to run on Android with some additional features like H3O algorithm.
According to the company’s blog post, “Embedded in the OS is a proprietary H3O algorithm that converts stereo sound into expansive multi-dimensional audio. Think 5.1 on your headphones. The perfect match for holographic H4V or just listening to your favourite tunes,”.
Hydrogen One Features
The phone will support various type of content such as 2D, holographic multi-view content, 3D content, artificial reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), as well as interactive games. The use of nanotechnology helps the phone to seamlessly switch between these content formats. The company also clarifies that no glasses or VR headsets will be required to enjoy such content on the phone.
The Red Hydrogen One holographic display lets users view the traditional 2D content normally at full screen resolution. You will also be able to view Red’s holographic Hydrogen 4-view content called H4V. The content will be stored via Red channel. Users can also view stereo 3D content and 2D/3D VR, AR and MR as well on the holographic display of the smartphone.
Hydrogen One is also a modular phone that will house a high-speed data bus to attach components with the help of modular pins. The company says that these modular attachments that will be released in future will help shooting high quality videos, images and holographic images.
It will come with support for Red’s camera program as well. Also, via the Red channel users can not only access 4-View holographic content, but also can create and upload .h4v content. It will also allow users to convert 3D to .h4v, download or stream movies, and give access to holographic games, apps, and more.
The company has not revealed the exact specifications of the phone yet. According to Jim Jannard, the founder of the company, the phone comes with internal storage and an external micro SD card slot, a headphone jack, rear and front camera.
As per the company, the Red Hydrogen One will be available in two variants – Titanium and Aluminum. The Aluminum model is priced at $1,195 (Rs. 77,197 approx) while the Titanium model costs $1,595 (Rs. 1,03,037 approx). The Smartphone is up for pre-orders in US and the shipping is expected to begin in Q1 2018. There is no information from the company whether it will launch this device in other markets too.
