RED Releases Its First Phone and It Has a Holographic Screen!

RED Phone Back

The company RED is known for it’s very expensive products such as its high resolution modular video cameras (up to 8K) that only professionals get to see the likes of. However, they are taking a stab at the mobile phone market and put up the RED Hydrogen phone for pre-order at  $1,595 USD for titanium and $1,195 USD for aluminum. That is relatively much more reasonable considering their 8K video camera (named Weapon 8K) costs $49,000…

The Hydrogen will feature a 5.7-inch “Professional Hydrogen Holographic Display” that will switch between three modes: traditional 2D content, holographic RED Hydrogen 4-view content and stereo 3D content. The device claims that users do not need glasses to experience the 3D and holographic content. This reminds me of the Nintendo 3DS screens as those also don’t require 3D glasses. They did cause an eye strain after long use though…

From the picture, it is clear there will be a headphone jack and USB-C for charging. From the notes, it will include an SD-card slot which will be useful for storing the content that it can display and potentially record. The phone will also be modular, meaning you will be able to purchase accessories (at a nice premium I bet) that can connect directly to the phone, offering you more functions as you need. There are no indications of what these modules are yet.

All we have to work with in terms of aesthetics is this picture and from the looks of it, it follows the same design as their modular cameras, with an industrial, rugged feel and the iconic RED logo on the back.

What do you think about the phone? Would you buy one over the new iPhone that will very likely cost over $1000 USD as well?

iPhone 1 – exactly 10 years ago

Exactly 10 years ago on June 29, 2007, the first iPhone went on sale for $399 USD. This year, Apple will announce the 10th anniversary iPhone which will probably be named iPhone 8 and is rumored to cost over $1000 USD!

Two of the rumored features of the new iPhone that I am most looking forward to are the “infinity-edge” display that will make the screen much bigger than the iPhone 7 but still have a similar footprint. Secondly, it should also have touch-id sensor beneath the screen which would blow away the solutions of other flagships with “infinity-edge” displays that compromise by placing the fingerprint sensor on the back…

I’m looking forward to the announce at Apple’s usual conference in September!

Apple Pay Debuts in Canada (American Express First to Adopt)

Apply Pay has finally come to Canada today and its first and so far only adopter is American Express! Looking at the source link on Apple’s website, Canada’s list is quite embarassing, but it’s better than nothing. I live in Canada and just so happen to have an American Express so I am excited to try it for the first time! If you have an American Express card and an iPhone6/6+ or newer, then you can add you card to the Wallet app as well.

Although American Express now supports Apple Pay, we also have to wait for merchants to start adopting the technology (NFC scanners etc.) in order to actually use it. Otherwise, all we have is a pretty american express card in our Wallet app that we can never use.

If you are wondering why only American Express has adopted this technology, I can speculate that it is probably due to fee agreements (who should pay who) and/or concerns about security. Hopefully more cards are able to come to agreements with Apple so that this technology can be pushed in Canada, and more merchants can adopt the NFC technology required.

Sources: Apple

Snapdragon 820 Official News and Announcements

qualcomm

Qualcomm recently announced its new Snapdragon 820 chip and it is looking good! It is more efficient and powerful than previous chips and will likely power many of next year’s flagship phones. With past rumors of the chip overheating being officially denied by Qualcomm on Weibo, manufacturers and consumers are more excited than ever.

Among the many improvements to the chip, the features that stand out are the new Kyro CPU which promises 2x better speed compared to the 810 while also increasing battery life. Along with this improvement to battery consumption is the support for “always-on” low-power sensors and Quick Charge 3.0 which is promised to be 4x faster than traditional charging and 33% more efficient than Quick Charge 2.0. According to tests by Droid-Life for the Quick Charge 2.0 of Samsung’s S6, the new chip in Samsung’s future S7 could promise a full charge (from 0% –> 100%) in under 1 hour!

The new Adreno 530 GPU offers a 40% graphics performance boost compared to the Adreno 430 GPU of the 810 chip. This can hopefully pave the way for upcoming VR applications. With better performance, developers will be able to push the new GPUs to their limits with high-res VR environments and actions.

Sources: Qualcomm, Droid-Life, CC