It was only a matter of time before someone decided to try and turn the smartphone display on its head and the first attempt is from RED. The super high-end camera company. Weird, but okay. RED has announced, rather than a new high-speed video camera, the Hydrogen.

The Hydrogen looks to be a smartphone, though the details of the device are being kept murky. It’s being billed as the “world’s first holographic media machine”, which could well describe a smartphone with a few display innovations — specifically a 5.7 ‘holographic’ display, whatever that means. Beyond that, the build materials (aluminium or titanium) and the price ($1,200 and $1,600, or R16,100 and R21,500 respectively), not much else is known about this device.

Except, that is, that it is going to be powered by Android. And that it’ll ship some time in Q1 2018, assuming there are no delays. And that it’s going to be modular in one way or another, except that no mods will be available at launch. Oh, and the price is probably only going to go up.

What we can expect is some kind of camera tech. RED makes its money from the kind of cameras that are used to film fighter jets in motion, blockbuster movies, or Donald Trump’s rapidly-inflating ego. It’d be far more noteworthy if they didn’t dump some kind of high-end photography kit into the Hydrogen. Plus, you know, the big red shutter icon on the sole media image is kind of a giveaway.

We’ll be keeping ears to the ground, if only for the novelty factor. RED’s first take on a ~~smartphone~~ media machine should be something to see, even if it’s a flop. We’ll let you know more as soon as we know more.

Source: RED via Android Police