YouTube star gives us a look at RED's mysterious holographic phone

The world's first smartphone with a supposed "holographic display" — the RED Hydrogen — is no longer a mystery.

YouTube star Marques Brownlee, better known by his fans as MKBHD, published a video on Wednesday giving us a closer first look at the phone's design. And, well, let's just say it's no skinny iPhone.

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Though RED teased a single obfuscated image of the Hydrogen last month, we had a feeling it would feature a chunky industrial design and focus heavily on recording video given the company's expertise at producing its cinema cameras.

MKBHD (a noted RED camera fanboy) is the first to get a closer look at the phone, and based on his first impressions, it seems like it could be somewhat polarizing. The Hydrogen is larger and thicker than an iPhone 7 Plus, and it has these ridges on both sides that we can only assume is better for gripping.

In his video he shows off three prototypes. The first one is a non-functional dummy unit that gives us a look at the casing design RED is shooting for. On the backside of the phone we can see the magnetic connector pins and the rather large camera bump with dual cameras and an integrated LED flash. MKBHD says RED's attachable modules will work just like Motorola's Moto Mods for its Z series.

If RED is going to copy an idea from anywhere, the Moto Mods are not a bad place to start. After recently checking out the Moto Z2 Force, I strongly believe magnetic connectors and attachments that clip on effortlessly to transform your phone into a whole new beast will be a trend we start seeing more in the future. Especially as we move towards phones without ports.

The second prototype is one with a working "holographic display," but he wasn't allowed to show it on camera, so instead he gave us his reaction. He seemed to be impressed by the display, but stopped short at telling us how the so-called holograms worked. Is it just a fancy glasses-free 3D experience like on the Nintendo 3DS or are they actually holograms that float in the air like in Star Wars? I'm hoping it's somewhere in-between, but it's probably like stereoscopic 3D.

The last prototype he revealed included a beefier camera attachment. It's a little unsightly, but the sensor should give the phone's built-in camera even more performance, kinda like how the Hasselblad TrueZoom camera attachment gives Motorola's modular phones a 10x optical zoom. 

MKBHD says the Hydrogen will shoot video with quality comparable to the company's entry-level cinema cameras, but with no sample footage to look at it, we'll reserve judgment until we can get our own hands on it. 

If there is even an ounce of truth to what MKBHD claims, this could be the perfect device for a film's second unit, which usually shoots most of the B-roll and pickup shots while the director and his first unit crew focus on the key shots. No more lugging around big expensive cameras.

The phone's not launching until Q1 of next year, so we'll have to wait a few months before we figure out whether this is truly a game-changer or not. But even if it is, the phone's massive $1,200 and $1,600 sticker prices are likely to deter most phone buyers.

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