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posted by martyb on Thursday November 01 2018, @12:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the insert-Star-Wars-droid-reference dept.

RED Hydrogen One Review of Reviews: A Spectacular Failure

RED is most well-known for making very high-end camera equipment. The Hydrogen One was announced over a year ago and was supposed to launch this past summer. It was delayed several times, but it will soon be available for the lofty price of $1,300. That's why the review embargo lifted this morning with almost unanimous negativity.

Red Hydrogen One Review: Red, dead, no redemption

The Hydrogen One is defined by its ambition. It's meant to revolutionize not just phones, but all of media with a "holographic" display and a camera system capable of recording into this 3D format. The phone is also expandable, and RED — one of the most esteemed names in digital imaging — plans to release an add-on camera sensor that's capable of transforming the phone into a full-on cinema camera.

It's an exciting prospect, but it all comes crashing down because of one immense flaw: the holographic display just isn't very good. It's a novelty. And while you can occasionally see glimmers of the potential that RED might have seen in this tech, it's certainly not present in this generation of the phone, and it's hard to imagine that potential being realized any time soon.

Previously: RED Pitches a $1,200 Holographic Android Smartphone


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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday November 01 2018, @01:19AM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday November 01 2018, @01:19AM (#756275) Journal

    Where do you see "midrange"?

    The Snapdragon 835 SoC isn't the best choice, particularly for the price:

    Because the phone was supposed to come out last year, it also has last year’s processor — a Snapdragon 835 at a time when every other flagship has an 845. On one hand, who cares? The phone runs fine, and the 835 is still a great processor. But on the other, this is a $1,300 phone, and it’s missing something that’s in every other (decidedly cheaper) flagship Android phone currently available. It’s an unnecessary miss on a phone that’s already in the hole.

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    The problem is that our expectations have been set far too high for RED to launch what feels more like a proof-of-concept than a flagship phone meant to compete against the likes of the Galaxy Note 9 and iPhone XS. Of course, RED might argue that it isn’t aiming to snag a significant portion of the market share anyway, and that selling just a fraction of a percentage of the number of phones Apple sells would be a win, but mid-tier specifications coupled with one of the most eye-popping prices of any phone on the market will make the Hydrogen One a nonstarter for too many consumers. All but the most curious of Android fans won’t find enough reasons to take the leap.

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