The world's first glasses-free holographic phone is coming, and it's not from Apple
Forget the iPhone 8 and Galaxy Note 8.
RED, the company that makes professional digital cameras for shooting Hollywood movies, is making a "holographic" phone called the Hydrogen.
The company is touting the Hydrogen as the "world's first holographic media machine" and says it doesn't require glasses to see the supposed holograms.
The 5.7-inch phone runs Android, and pre-orders are available in two tiers: It costs $1,595 for the "Titanium" high-end version and $1,195 for the "Aluminum" slightly lower-end version. The phone ships in Q1 2018.
According to RED's announcement, the Hydrogen has a "professional hydrogen holographic display," which "seamlessly switches between traditional 2D content, 3D content, and interactive games."
The screen is, according to the company, capable of displaying "holographic RED Hydrogen 4-View content (H4V)," "stereo 3D content" and "2D/3D VR, AR (augmented reality) and MR (mixed reality)."
High-quality audio is another feature to drool over, with a special algorithm that can reportedly convert stereo sound into 5.1 surround sound.
Like the company's modular cinema cameras, the Hydrogen is all about attaching accessories. You can attach camera extras like "future attachments for shooting higher quality motion and still images as well as Hydrogen format holographic images." The caveat: These accessories won't ship at launch.
Additionally, the Hydrogen can be connected to the company's Scarlet, EPIC and Weapon cameras as a separate control input and camera monitor.
And that's basically it. We have no idea what processor it has, or how much storage, or RAM, or anything else about the camera (is there even a selfie camera?).
The teaser image clearly shows a headphone jack, USB-C port, and a rather big (and serious) looking camera protruding out of the backside. RED's website says it'll have a microSD card slot, though.
There's also a prominent red-colored record button on the side, and what looks like indentations for you to possibly grip the phone. It's a weird design that's very industrial-looking just like RED's cinema cameras.
Below, you can find a brightened up version of the teaser image, which reveals more of the design.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Is the phone overkill? It sure looks like it, but that hasn't stopped YouTubers like MKBHD from using RED's cameras to shoot 8K-resolution videos.
The Hydrogen is clearly not for everyone and aimed squarely at the RED camera fanbase and other camera nerds. That rear-facing cam better be excellent because for the $1,200 price, it's definitely not a phone made for the average joe.
Raymond Wong is Mashable's Senior Tech Correspondent. He reviews gadgets and tech toys and analyzes the tech industry. Raymond's also a bit of a camera geek, gamer, and fine chocolate lover. Before arriving at Mashable, he was the Deputy Editor of NBC Universal's tech publication DVICE. His writing has appeared on G4TV, BGR, Yahoo and Ubergizmo, to name a few. You can follow Raymond on Twitter @raywongy or Instagram @sourlemons.
