After many a postponement, the RED Hydrogen One was finally released last year to scathing reviews from the media and extreme disappointment from users at large. However, undeterred by the setback, the company is reportedly still planning to release a sequel. In a new blog post on Tuesday, RED founder, Jim Jannard, reiterated plans about a successor to the Hydrogen One and, blamed an unnamed Chinese ODM for many of the company’s problems.
According to him, the company is working to put a high-quality Pro 3D camera on its next smartphone, the Hydrogen Two. He also said that the company is working on radically changing the Hydrogen program with a ‘new and extraordinary sensor’ to better satisfy pro photographers, as well as casual consumers. He also reassured H1 owners that the device will not be obsolete when the Pro camera version comes out later this year. “Its (the new image sensor’s) capability will vastly exceed the originally planned module”, he said.
According to him: “We chose an ODM in China to prepare the HYDROGEN One for manufacture at Foxconn. While Foxconn has been fantastic, our ODM, which was responsible for the mechanical packaging of our design including new technologies along with all software integration with the Qualcomm processor, has significantly under-performed. Getting our ODM in China to finish the committed features and fix known issues on the HYDROGEN One has proven to be beyond challenging. Impossible actually”.
He further added that the Hydrogen Two design was started virtually from scratch at a new ODM that he said was “clearly more capable of building and supporting the product we (and our customers) demand”. He also added that the upcoming phone is being “methodically designed and crafted to surprise and exceed expectations”.
