Sadly, we won’t be seeing the Hydrogen One this summer as previously promised, but RED, fortunately, has given us a firm Fall release date for the holographic smartphone.
According to a forum post made by RED founder Jim Jannard, the Hydrogen One will miss its summer release date. Instead, it’s scheduled to be released this fall on November 2nd. Preorder phones should begin to ship as soon as October 9th. Jannard also revealed that before those dates a very small number of models will be sent to beta testers for pre-approval.
These Houdini models of the phones are a developer model of the Hydrogen One and will be available on August 31st. Those who preordered the smartphone can request a unit and test it for RED. There are strict rules though for those that test it. Jannard wrote testers are not allowed to disassemble the smartphone and are only allowed to post “good images” from the camera. Plus, they can only say “nice things” about the camera and “posting about bugs, problems or issues is not cool.”
The Hydrogen One was supposed to launch this month but was held back. It failed one part of the carrier certification and needs a fix to redo a piece of tooling. The phone is, however, FCC approved now and we have a picture to prove this holographic phone exists.
Could there be another delay?
While we do have a solid release date for the Hydrogen One, that date could always change. Jannard cautioned that there could potentially be another delay. RED’s already pushed the launch date for the Hydrogen One a couple of times. At this point, if there is another delay it’d feel less shocking and more like déjà vu.
Regardless, the Hydrogen One is allegedly set to ship on October 9th for preorders and November 2nd for carrier launch. It will be priced at $1,295.
