RED gives new details about smartphone with ‘holographic’ screen
RED has released new details about its Hydrogen One smartphone. According to Jim Jannard, founder of the company, the device can not only display holographic images, but users can also create them themselves.
In a forum post on Reduser.net, Jim Jannard writes that he and RED CEO Jarred Land are now using the first two copies of the Hydrogen One smartphones. It would be prototypes that ‘do almost everything you expect from a smartphone’.
The 5.7″ screen has a resolution of 2560×1440 pixels in the regular 2d mode, but also has a 4V mode, for ‘holographic’ display. This should allow the display of 3d images, without users having to use a 3d – goggles. Details about the technique used already came out last year.
According to Jannard, the screen dims a bit in 4V mode and the image is then ‘better than 3d’. He says he is showing prototypes to production partners in preparation for the Hydrogen Network. That should become a place where smartphone users can find 4V content. It would be material from major studios and ‘other content providers’.
Such ‘holographic’ images can also be made with the telephone, without the need for a module. Jannard does not yet say which technology the smartphone uses for this. When making the images, a ‘2d companion’ is also saved, so that a normal image is also available. Furthermore, the RED founder says that there will be collaborations with social media platforms, so that it becomes possible to share the 4V images. It would be ‘big players’.
In addition to showing 4V images, the phone must also be expandable with modules, via a system with pins on the back of the device. They supply power and data in both directions and it is possible to stack different modules. Jannard mentions a camera module with ‘cinema quality’ and a battery as examples.
The Hydrogen One will get a Snapdragon 835x soc, Jannard says. Whether the x is a variant of the existing Snapdragon 835 is not yet known. The device will be slightly heavier, thicker and larger than most 5.7″ smartphones, but should also be sturdier. The battery will have a capacity of 4500mAh.
The company will host a Hydrogen Day at RED Studios in April to demonstrate the technology to partners who want to create 4V content and to customers who have pre-ordered the device. According to Jannard, providers are very interested in the device and will offer the Hydrogen One sometime in the summer. Even before that, the unlocked versions should be for sale.
RED announced its smartphone in July last year. Then the manufacturer said that the Hydrogen One would be released in early 2018. There is an aluminum version that costs $1195 and a titanium variant that costs $1595. It is the first smartphone of the American company, which specializes in professional cinema cameras.