When the first iPhone was introduced by Steve Jobs in 2007, it propelled the phone market in a new direction that had competitors running to create something similar. A decade later, it's very much the same story with Apple's flagship setting the tone for what phones will look like if they want to be successful. Ignore that and go in a completely different direction and you have the Hydrogen One, RED's first smartphone. It doesn't even remotely attempt to take inspiration from the iPhone, or any other Android phone for that matter, treading forward with a vigorous attitude of shaking the market with ambitious ideas that frankly no customer is asking for. Regrettably, most of RED's ideas consist of features that make the device one disappointing gimmick. Before I get into talking about the Hydrogen One's features, let me recap the exhaustive journey the device took on its way to release. RED makes some of the most powerful 4K cameras in the movie industry, so it came as a big surprise when CEO Jim Jannard revealed in July 2017 that his company was diving into the difficult market of smartphones. He promised the mythical phone was going to introduce features no other smartphone offered and turn the smartphone market on its head. When the Hydrogen One was introduced, it was revealed to be a device with an ultra rugged design that borrowed a lot of inspiration from RED's cameras, not exactly the point of reference you'd peg for a smartphone. Among the specs the device features is a 5.7-inch 4V holographic display, Snapdragon 835 processor, 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage with microSD expandability, front-firing dual stereo speakers, 4,500mAh battery and a 12MP dual-camera system. That was right in line with the best smartphones of the time—Galaxy S8, V30, OnePlus 5 and Pixel. RED promised the phone would debut in early 2018. It didn't and the phone entered a year of nonstop delays. After missing the early 2018 window, RED pointed toward summer as the new release timeframe, even holding an event in May to give reporters a chance to see the phone for the first time, which we did, but as you probably guessed by now, it was delayed again. Fifteen months after being announced, the RED Hydrogen One is finally here.

About those gimmicks Remember those gimmicks I mentioned earlier? Well it's two of them RED hopes can be the breakthrough features that make the Hydrogen One a hit: a 4-view holographic display and modular functionality. We've seen similar implementations of these features in the past, think of the HTC Evo 3D and Moto Mods, but RED believes its implementation is the real game changer. It's kind of hard to take a 4V holographic display seriously. There's no other way to take it other than a gimmick similar to 3D. But RED did a much better job compared to what we've seen from HTC or Nintendo with its 3DS gaming console, although not significantly better. RED's 4V technology does not use the common 3D method where two images are combined to create a three dimensional effect. Instead, is uses some very impressive engineering with the LCD panel by putting a layer underneath it that redirects light to multiple directions through a new lighting system it calls Leia. This, along with a special algorithm, is able to deliver a "4-view" image that pops with various layers of depth. The effect is kind of odd but once the oddity wears away, it grows on you. Most pictures taken with the 4V effect display two layers of depth, but others display up to four making the scene look super deep and surreal. RED is pushing 4V through multiple apps dedicated to this content. Among them is the Hydrogen Network which will house 4V content and an Instagram-like social media app called Holopix. The Hydrogen One comes with 10-minute sneak peeks of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Ready Player One courtesy of AT&T, to see what the conversion of regular content to 4V looks like. Frankly, there's not much to talk about. It just doesn't look that great and I often wondered if the 4V mode was actually on. It was, but that's how subtle the effect is. Unlike stills that deliver true depth, converted movies and videos don't deliver this same effect and the results are not that remarkable. This brings me to the most disappointing aspect of 4V—its resolution. The Hydrogen One boasts a high-res Quad HD display, but when using 4V mode, it downscales to a much more pixelated resolution. I'm not sure the exact measurement, but I'd peg it to be around 720p, if not lower. Hurting its chances to be something worthwhile is that there is a clear separation between standard use and 4V use. A user could use the phone without ever knowing 4V content exists because it only works within a few select apps. And even with that, the library of 4V content is still significantly limited. Although the 4V holographic display has a lot of potential given the things it can do, I don't believe it is a feature casual consumers are clamoring for. If you do use the Hydrogen One, it's a feature you'd forget about within a few days and never use again. The other gimmicky feature is the pogo pins on the back of the phone that will allow for mod support. RED is working on a camera module and another that could turn the Hydrogen One into a display for its high end cameras. Alas, RED hasn't released any of these mods so we don't know how well they will work. If history serves any indication, probably not that good. LG and Motorola both ditched support after only a few years of experimenting with mods because they were never hits with consumers. I suspect RED is going to run into the same road blocks.