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okay so you know when you're at a friend's house and out of politeness you

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wolfed down the butternut squash giving your compliments to the chef

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and then to your utter dismay they plop another giant helping on your plate

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well today's subject is a little bit like that because we still

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can't quite figure out who asked for some of the features of the phone we're

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reviewing today the red hydrogen one

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but you know what you guys were asking for i'm sure

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this sponsor this video is brought to you by storyblocks video they offer

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today at the link in the video description

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our titanium version of the hydrogen one arrived in a nondescript black box with

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a letter from red explaining why we didn't actually get the titanium version

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that we ordered looks like they're going to send it later but as a way of saying

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sorry we actually get to keep the aluminum one that they shipped early

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well i mean i think early is probably less accurate than saying less horribly

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late but still two phones for the price of one overpriced one is pretty good as

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apologies go and i've got to give some kudos here for

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a company that doesn't always do a great job of included accessories throwing in

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a fast charger was a nice touch now after about a week of shared use

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between me and brandon there are some things about the hydrogen one that stand

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out the build quality is exceptional with the phone being made

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of mostly metal with these scalloped ridges on the side that actually helped

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with grip more than i anticipated another unexpected benefit of the

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scallops is that they make it really easy to find the power button which

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doubles as the fingerprint reader this was a problem that i noticed with the

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razer phone 2 when i was using it recently that ruggedness does come with

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some trade-offs though this is one

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heavy phone like to give you guys some context compared to the samsung note 9

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the note 9. is gigantic the hydrogen 1

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is .16 pounds more and you can feel every gram

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of it to the point where daily use especially with small hands like mine

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did get tiring at times continuing with the physical tour we get two front

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selfie cameras two rear cameras much

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more about those in a moment stereo front-facing speakers a headphone jack a

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tool-less sim tray the holographic qhd

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display and a type-c connector at the bottom now before we get to the two big

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features of this phone the display and the cameras i want to take a minute to

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talk about the speakers on red's website they say

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sound you didn't think to ask for and i think this was an unintentionally apt

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way to describe it because if i had ever overheard someone asking for this weird

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3d audio technology in their smartphone i would have told them that frankly

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that's a pretty silly idea and red's implementation has done nothing to

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change my mind with 3d audio enabled you are supposed

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to have this expansive spatial immersive

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experience but in my opinion it just sounds like a

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cheap eq preset and going around the office and having others try it both

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with and without headphones every single person preferred the

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unaltered version and a couple people actually shared my disappointment with

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the maximum volume of this thing considering how much of the phone is

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taken up by speaker grills let's move on then to one of the weirdest features to

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hit a smartphone in a long time the qhd

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holographic display going back again to red's literature we once again find bold

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claims and once again find ourselves disappointed i mean the 3d effect is

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cool like when the phone first boots up

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you're greeted with a stereoscopic 3d graphic that kind of

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pops off the screen and shows off what the display can do

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and red built what they're calling hydrogen network which is supposed to be

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a hub for content that takes advantage of the display

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but the demos themselves are mostly unimpressive and gimmicky feeling due to

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the fact that it feels like there is a significant drop in resolution when

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you're playing back with the 4v display on the bottom line is that for media

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consumption the holographic effect is cool but only for about five minutes and

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the story doesn't change for gaming on any of the whopping three games that are

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available in leia loft none of this though would be a huge problem if it

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wasn't for the glaring issues that exist while consuming normal content compared

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to other flagship smartphone displays the color accuracy and contrast of the

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hydrogen one is just well i don't know how else to say this

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it's not even close which is an even bigger problem when you consider red's

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pedigree as a content creator company you basically can't do any meaningful

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photo editing on this phone which is becoming a more and more common use case

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bringing us perfectly then to the elephant or would it be a dragon or

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something more ferocious in the room the cameras

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red is of course first and foremost a digital cinema company so how has that

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translated to its smartphone the answer is

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it's complicated the thirteen hundred dollar price tag on

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even the aluminum version of the hydrogen one means that we have no

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choice but to compare it to the best of the best

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and red's lack of experience here really shows

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it's not bad across the board or anything like that

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but it's disappointing it leaves me wishing that red had pushed to be just a

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little bit better look at this shot now the pixel 3 came out with the

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closest shot to my eye with the note 9 going a little bit too far and over

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exposing the building and the iphone 10s in my opinion leveling out the entire

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exposure in each part of the image too much to the point where everything looks

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bright and at the same time making the whole image lack any realistic depth now

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the hydrogen actually did a good job with the dynamic range and if we look

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closer the detail captured is actually

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quite good maybe even better than the note 9. but the images from this phone

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they lack color and they feel flat

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honestly it feels kind of like the approach that cinema cameras take when

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recording video flatter recording allows the editor more flexibility in

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post-production in terms of color and it allows cameras the ability to capture a

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much wider dynamic range versus if they just tried to grab something that's

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closer to real life and record it straight to the camera

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and this characteristic is where my conflicted feelings about the hydrogen 1

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begin the hydrogen photos consistently came

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out duller and flatter than any of the other phones and you might think well i

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like editing my photos and a flatter image is a good starting point for a

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stylized edit but these are jpegs not raws so there's

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less flexibility in post and if you look closely the hydrogen one's dynamic range

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is not as good as the iphones or the pixel threes which means that even with

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the theoretically helpful flat look approach red is still having trouble

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matching the performance of the other flagships so it's the camera not the

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screen or the speakers or the weight or the price

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where the hydrogen one finally really falls apart for me again it's not

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terrible this portrait mode shot is being lit by a neon sign which is a very

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challenging scenario and the hydrogen one managed fairly convincing and

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natural looking bokeh compared to the pixel 3 with the iphone and the note

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both face planting with various levels of spectacularity

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but as we look through this bunch of photos

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what we find is that these golden scenarios are few and far between and

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overall the images captured by the hydrogen one tend to lack life

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which means more busy work in lightroom for an end image that in many cases

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won't be better or even as good and the holographic images are not

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enough to save it selfies feel like you're

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taking a photo for like a rare version of a trading card and the rear camera is

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actually kind of nauseating to shoot with because the hydrogen attempts to

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convey the effect in the live preview which basically just makes it harder to

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tell if your photo's in focus it's a gimmick and i suspect a second

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generation phone if they do one won't include it so in conclusion the red

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hydrogen one is an interesting idea paired with flagship hardware from two

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years ago and underdeveloped software that needs a lot of maturing before red

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will be able to take on the true flagship competitors

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if the camera was amazing we might be singing a different tune especially in

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light of the upcoming accessories and the integration with other red products

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we use them every day including this shoot this shoot right now shot on red

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but as it is it's just not enough and you shouldn't

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buy this phone unless you're like a

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massive red fanboy and you basically just want it as like a collector's piece

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i mean i'll probably hold on to it for that

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speaking of holding on hold on to your hats kids because

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with story blocks video you can get studio quality stock video clips for a

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motion backgrounds and more and we use it all the time especially on our

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techwiki channel plus you can get exclusive discounts on millions of

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always something fresh to download check them out today at the link in the video

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description so thanks for watching guys if you disliked this video you can hit that

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button but if you liked it hit like get subscribed or maybe consider checking

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out where to buy the stuff we featured i mean technically we did also feature

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the iphone 10s the pixel 3 xl and the note 9.

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so maybe we could put links to those uh links to buy the stuff we featured uh

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blah blah blah something something our merch store is linked in the video description and so is our community

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forum