When the Hydrogen One smartphone was first announced, it was supposed to basically change everyone’s perceptions of what a smartphone could be.
Needless to say, a lot of the final product fell way short of some of RED’s promises.
That’s ok – it happens to a lot of manufacturers out there. Hype is one heckuva drug, and we all fall victim to the best marketing from time to time.
And RED seems to be determined to make the Hydrogen One the premier brand in smartphones because the company is going to give it another shot with the Hydrogen One Pro version.
The Verge reports that the pro version of the Hydrogen One will likely eschew some of the gimmicky marketing associated with the first iteration and will, instead, focus on high-end smartphone photography. For those of you who may remember, the Hydrogen One was promising a bunch of stuff with holographic technology that never really panned out.
This would be in addition to an upgrade to the internals of the Hydrogen One.
One change that The Verge notes in the marketing for the next version of Hydrogen One is that RED is apparently dumping the modular system idea it originally had talked about.
The company touted the motto “Obsolescence obsolete” to refer to the ability of users to upgrade their Hydrogen One smartphones but this seems to have become some sort of trade-in program similar to those offered by Samsung and Apple.
In general, the hope is that RED can translate their namesake photography products into a smartphone lineup. Given how big of a segment that is becoming in the overall scheme of unit sales, that’s probably not a bad pivot.
Did you pick up a Hydrogen One smartphone? Do you like it?
Let us know your experiences in the comments section below.