 Okay, so you know when you're at a friend's house and out of politeness, you wolfed down the butternut squash, giving your compliments to the chef, and then to your utter dismay, they plop another giant helping on your plate? Well, today's subject is a little bit like that because we still can't quite figure out who asked for some of the features of the phone we're reviewing today, the Red Hydrogen One. But you know what you guys were asking for, I'm sure? This sponsor. This video is brought to you by Storyblocks Video. They offer studio quality stock video clips for a fraction of the cost. Check them out today at the link in the video description. Our titanium version of the Hydrogen One arrived in a nondescript black box with a letter from Red explaining why we didn't actually get the titanium version that we ordered. Looks like they're gonna send it later. But as a way of saying sorry, we actually get to keep the aluminum one that they shipped early. Well, I mean, I think early is probably less accurate than saying less horribly late, but still two phones for the price of one overpriced one is pretty good as apologies go. And I've got to give some kudos here. For a company that doesn't always do a great job of included accessories, throwing in a fast charger was a nice touch. Now, after about a week of shared use between me and Brandon, there are some things about the Hydrogen One that stand out. The build quality is exceptional with the phone being made of mostly metal with these scalloped ridges on the side that actually helped with grip more than I anticipated. Another unexpected benefit of the scallops is that they make it really easy to find the power button, which doubles as the fingerprint reader. This was a problem that I noticed with the Razer Phone 2 when I was using it recently. That ruggedness does come with some trade-offs though. This is one heavy phone. Like to give you guys some context, compared to the Samsung Note 9, the Note 9 is gigantic. The Hydrogen One is 0.16 pounds more and you can feel every gram of it to the point where daily use, especially with small hands like mine, did get tiring at times. Continuing with the physical tour, we get two front selfie cameras, two rear cameras, much more about those in a moment, stereo front-facing speakers, a headphone jack, a tool-less SIM tray, the holographic QHD display, and a type C connector at the bottom. Now, before we get to the two big features of this phone, the display and the cameras, I wanna take a minute to talk about the speakers. On Red's website, they say, sound you didn't think to ask for. And I think this was an unintentionally apt way to describe it, because if I had ever overheard someone asking for this weird 3D audio technology in their smartphone, I would have told them that, frankly, that's a pretty silly idea. And Red's implementation has done nothing to change my mind. With 3D audio enabled, you are supposed to have this expensive, spatial, immersive experience, but in my opinion, it just sounds like a cheap EQ preset. And going around the office and having others try it, both with and without headphones, every single person preferred the unaltered version. And a couple people actually shared my disappointment with the maximum volume of this thing, considering how much of the phone is taken up by speaker girls. Let's move on then to one of the weirdest features to hit a smartphone in a long time, the QHD holographic display. Going back again to Red's literature, we once again find bold claims, and once again find ourselves disappointed. I mean, the 3D effect is cool. Like when the phone first boots up, you're greeted with a stereoscopic 3D graphic that kinda pops off the screen and shows off what the display can do. And Red built what they're calling hydrogen network, which is supposed to be a hub for content that takes advantage of the display. But the demos themselves are mostly unimpressive and gimmicky feeling, due to the fact that it feels like there is a significant drop in resolution when you're playing back with the 4V display on. The bottom line is that for media consumption, the holographic effect is cool, but only for about five minutes. And the story doesn't change for gaming on any of the whopping three games that are available in Layaloft. None of this though would be a huge problem if it wasn't for the glaring issues that exist while consuming normal content. Compared to other flagship smartphone displays, the color accuracy and contrast of the hydrogen one is just, well, I don't know how else to say this. It's not even close, which is an even bigger problem when you consider Red's pedigree as a content creator company. You basically can't do any meaningful photo editing on this phone, which is becoming a more and more common use case. Bringing us perfectly then to the elephant, or would it be a dragon or something more ferocious, in the room, the cameras. Red is of course, first and foremost, a digital cinema company. So how has that translated to its smartphone? The answer is, it's complicated. The $1,300 price tag on even the aluminum version of the hydrogen one means that we have no choice but to compare it to the best of the best. And Red's lack of experience here really shows. It's not bad across the board or anything like that, but it's disappointing. It leaves me wishing that Red had pushed to be just a little bit better. Look at this shot. Now, the Pixel 3 came out with the closest shot to my eye, with the Note 9 going a little bit too far and overexposing the building, and the iPhone XS, in my opinion, leveling out the entire exposure in each part of the image too much to the point where everything looks bright, and at the same time making the whole image lack any realistic depth. Now, the hydrogen actually did a good job with the dynamic range. And if we look closer, the detail captured is actually quite good, maybe even better than the Note 9. But the images from this phone, they lack color and they feel flat. Honestly, it feels kind of like the approach that cinema cameras take when recording video. Flatter recording allows the editor more flexibility in post-production in terms of color, and it allows cameras the ability to capture a much wider dynamic range, versus if they just tried to grab something that's closer to real life and record it straight to the camera. And this characteristic is where my conflicted feelings about the Hydrogen One begin. The hydrogen photos consistently came out duller and flatter than any of the other phones. And you might think, well, I like editing my photos, and a flatter image is a good starting point for a stylized edit. But these are JPEGs, not RAWs. So there's less flexibility in post. And if you look closely, the Hydrogen One's dynamic range is not as good as the iPhone's or the Pixel 3's, which means that even with the theoretically helpful flat look approach, RED is still having trouble matching the performance of the other flagships. So it's the camera, not the screen or the speakers, or the weight, or the price, where the Hydrogen One finally really falls apart for me. Again, it's not terrible. This portrait mode shot is being lit by a neon sign, which is a very challenging scenario. And the Hydrogen One managed fairly convincing and natural looking bokeh compared to the Pixel 3, with the iPhone and the Note both face planting with various levels of spectacularity. But as we look through this bunch of photos, what we find is that these golden scenarios are few and far between. And overall, the images captured by the Hydrogen One tend to lack life, which means more busy work in Lightroom for an end image that in many cases won't be better or even as good. And the holographic images are not enough to save it. Selfies feel like you're taking a photo for like a rare version of a trading card. And the rear camera is actually kind of nauseating to shoot with because the Hydrogen attempts to convey the effect in the live preview, which basically just makes it harder to tell if your photo's in focus. It's a gimmick and I suspect a second generation phone, if they do one, won't include it. So in conclusion, the Red Hydrogen One is an interesting idea paired with flagship hardware from two years ago and underdeveloped software that needs a lot of maturing before Red will be able to take on the true flagship competitors. If the camera was amazing, we might be singing a different tune, especially in light of the upcoming accessories and the integration with other Red products. We use them every day, including this shoot, this shoot right now, shot on Red. But as it is, it's just not enough and you shouldn't buy this phone unless you're like a massive Red fan boy and you basically just want it as like a collector's piece. I mean, I'll probably hold onto it for that. Speaking of holding on, hold on, dear hats kids, because with Storyblocks video, you can get studio quality stock video clips for a fraction of the cost. 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