The Most Expensive Phone I'll Never Use...

So a little while ago I made a video on this device right here, kind of iconic at this point

Iconic for the wrong reasons. It feels like a weapon, it probably could be a weapon in fact

Almost everybody who commented on this particular smartphone viewed it as a disappointment

This of course is the Red Hydrogen Smartphone. That's a company with credibility in the camera space, delivering professional grade video cinema cameras

But no experience here, not with smartphones. So when they said they were going to make a smartphone

a lot of people got really excited. They were like, well, this could be the smartphone with the best camera, for example

I went out and I pre-ordered not this model, but the more expensive titanium version

I've actually got it. It finally showed up. Now, this thing was delayed, but RED did something kind of cool

While people were waiting for their titanium version, They sent over a free aluminum version

In the meantime, while you were waiting, that's cool. This one is $1,300 bucks right now

$1,600 US. I thought it would make sense to unbox this and do a quick comparison visually speaking

I don't know of another titanium smartphone on planet Earth. But this also offers up an opportunity to kind of talk a little bit about Red future in the smartphone game and some suggestions I have But first things first let check this out It kind of cool looking

Ooh, it's heavy. Much like the other one, it's a rugged, weapon-like looking thing

Now, the claim to fame here is the 3D functionality, but as we all know, I mean, that kind of, it didn't pan out

It didn't catch fire as far as TVs were concerned with that feature. It didn't catch fire with the Nintendo device. You remember the 3DS construction though. It's like cyborg future carbon fiber

Titanium, it's all the buzzwords. I mean this is probably what you would be using in the post-apocalyptic

cyberpunk future. You can see we got these pins here on the bottom a lot of promise there with

modules and accessories and so on none of which we've seen yet, but that just highlights how

how complicated and difficult it is to get into the smartphone market and to keep up with the times

The smartphone marketplace moving so fast. I don't know how customers feel who pre-ordered this because it's hard to be mad because you got this free phone

But then in general, the way that the device was accepted by people

I didn't read a single review or watch a single video from a customer or from a tech channel that was like

this is the one, this is what you need. This device is definitely not concerned with screen to body ratio You kind of had to search and hunt for a reason for this thing to exist because it wasn the best at the thing you had hoped it would be the best at And that of course is the camera unit

Not good. Thanks. Everything is very blurry. Glasses list 3D capable display

There's a novelty factor associated with showing off that type of content

watching it yourself for the first time, second time. Kind of 3D, but not very far

It's not like out here. It's just like a little bit away from the display. It's super hard to

What do I even I mean? I can't imagine carrying this thing eventually

You're just like I just want to see my content the way that I expect some relatively large speaker units on it

So it can deliver some decent sound still not the best that I actually heard on any device

I'm a bit disappointed myself. I had some high expectations for this phone

and I definitely didn't expect to be sitting here talking about just receiving the titanium version

Maybe the smartphone itself, the smartphone form factor, is the wrong place for RED to innovate

This brand very popular in the professional camera space. The problem, though, with RED cameras is that they're big

They gigantic And that good for what they do But it leaves a gap You know there a gap somewhere between the smartphone and the huge professional camera That where I think Red should be playing

That's where I think they could innovate. If Red had a compact pocket cinema camera with a touch

screen on the back that ran Android so you could share from it immediately so you could get better

quality stuff that could then interface immediately with social media, YouTube, and the other things

that you do on Android, that could be compelling. Interchangeable lenses on a device like that

could be compelling. A bigger sensor than expected on a device like that could be compelling

Some of the things that held back those previous Samsung Android-based cameras was the fact that

they just were bad cameras that so happened to have Android slapped onto them. But what about a

good camera? What about a RED camera with an Android back and then RED caliber sensors and so

on on the front end? So here's my advice to RED. Kill this product. I don't see it happening. I

don't see this picking up steam. I don't know who this is for. I mean, I can name plenty of cameras

that are better than this one. Of course, the Pixel, the latest Samsung, and so on. That

marketplace is moving too quickly, but you could create this whole new marketplace somewhere

between where you're at with the Pro cameras and the smartphone itself

That hybrid product, that could be cool