Gadgetory

the red hydrogen one is probably one of the most expensive phones I've ever tested here on my channel coming in at a whopping $1,300 I originally purchased the $1600 titanium version but that's been delayed for a few more months red was nice enough to send out the aluminum version along with this massive sticky paperweight thing to help tide us over until the titanium version comes out one of the reasons these phones are probably so expensive might be because we're paying for the fancy metal and plastic envelopes and laid into the cardboard box the people normally display the box their phone comes in announced over a year ago with mini delays it's finally time to assess the build quality of the red hydrogen one let's get started the first impression right out of the box is that this thing is massive and hefty metal is everywhere with deep unique rugged corrugated grips along both sides and the back panel it's definitely one of the most unique looking phones of this year the biggest high point of this phone has been the display read claims that they're for view light-filled display creates an experience beyond 3d that the world never saw coming the idrija 'none has two cameras on the back so it can take these 3d holographic picture things you can get a pretty good idea of what it's supposed to look like as I wiggle the phone back and forth just in real life you don't need to wiggle the phone to get this effect because it's built right into the screen it's really kind of like an automatic digital magic eye it's interesting for sure and with a 1300 our price tag we hold the advertising and promises to a whole new level I'm not the biggest fan of meaningless advertising buzzwords so when red says the world never saw this coming I got a step back and point out that HTC did basically this exact same thing seven years ago seven back in the year 2011 a year before my YouTube channel was even born the HTC released the Evo 3d with dual 3d cameras on the back I just picked up this little guy for $60 on eBay we'll do a little camera comparison between the Evo 3d and it's red hydrogen 1 counterpart holding both phones side-by-side shows the exact same 3d depth effect going on with each screen we get the same shifty pop with both images this is probably one of those situations where red would have been better off not hyping the display the technology has definitely improved in the last 7 years of course but it's still been around for a long time and it's not the $1,300 display I feel we were promised let's jump into the durability with a scratch test like always we check to see what the holographic screen is made from plastic was scratched at level three glass scratches at a 6 and real sapphire crystal scratches at level 8 or 9 red as using Gorilla Glass to cover their holographic tech and indeed we see scratches at level 6 with deeper grooves at a level 7 similar to the razor phone we have some massive speaker grilles at the top and bottom of this phone the top grille houses dual eight point three megapixel front-facing cameras that can also produce the same Auto stereogram ik 3d effect as the rear cameras both image sensors are protected with glass along with the other sensors on the right side the speaker grille itself is made from black plastic similar to the Razer foam the bottom speaker grille is the same black plastic which can be removed interestingly enough even though the exterior plastic grille looks like it has two speaker locations there's only one small interior slit where the sound comes out it'll look super glamorous and pretty on the outside but rather underwhelming in reality so far the red hydrogen one is not quite turning out like it's hypothetical snapchat filter implied it would these sides though are impressive made with big textured aluminium ridges there is no phone quite like it the volume buttons are both made from metal the rugged aluminum finger grips are mirrored on the opposite side and this includes a dedicated camera button with a small red plastic inlay seems to be reds theme no complaints the fingerprint scanner and power button is also over here and can be scratched although with the height of the ridges on either side protecting it from rubbing against anything I highly doubt scratching will be an issue even then if it does get heavily scratched it still recognizes my fingerprint and functions every single time the top of the phone is made from aluminum along with the sim and SD card tray and strangely enough this flagship still has a headphone jack probably because this phone was announced a year ago when headphone jacks were still cool either way I'm glad it's here the bottom has a USB C port and a lot more metal now for the back of the phone red has put a lot of emphasis on their industrial aluminum design with durable Kevlar panels which I'm not really sure what they mean by durable it scratches about the same level as plastic and peels up like a giant sticker at least the copper accessory attachment pad doesn't peel off that would be awkward that part might still be real although no accessories exist yet so it's hard to say for sure the thick ribbed aluminum backplate is all metal you can see that silver shine through under the black coating I wonder if these ribs will help guide the hypothetical accessories into place when they become available the red media machine logo is from metal with an unscratched will red inlay in the center it's kind of neat the massive camera lens is covering dual twelve point three megapixel cameras both of which are used for that 3d effect and have no wide-angle or telephoto options the dual tone flash is made from plastic and we have another scratch Abul kevlar sticker panel up here at the top I'm pretty sure I saw a D brand version of this for like ten bucks the design of the hydrogen-1 is a lot like getting catfished on tinder the pixel orientation of the hydrogen one might be a tad different than your standard LCD so it gets that holographic depth effect but it is still an LCD we should see the pixels on the red hydrogen's 5.7 inch 1440p IPS LCD start to go black with the heat from my red lighter but when the heat is removed the pixels start to recover this proves that taking a lighter to the screen has been useful at least one time in the last hundred smartphone durability tests I knew it would be useful someday thumbs up to the hard-working ladder doing his job and now for the bin test with how much metal is oozing out the size of this phone it's pretty reasonable to assume it's built like a tank and the only way to know for sure is to apply unreasonable pressure to an unreasonably priced device but when doing so we get zero flex not even a creek or a pop the red hydrogen one might be seven years late with screen technology using misleading plastic speaker grilles with built in kevlar stickers but they sure did make a very rigid and structural smart phone is it worth $1,300 I'm not a big fan of the over-promising under-delivering premium costing buzzwords so I'm gonna have to go with a no on this one for now I definitely see potential down the road though when the price drops by probably half hit that subscribe button if you enjoy watching constructive destruction and come hang out with me on Instagram and Twitter thanks ton for watching I'll see you around