Some bad news good news here for all you Red fans hoping to try out their Hydrogen One phone with the holographic display. The bad news is, it won’t be as soon as you had hoped because of more delays. The good news is the Red Hydrogen One has an official release date of October 9th for pre-orders and November 2nd for carrier models.
Beginning November 2nd AT&T, Verizon, and Telcel in Mexico will offer the Aluminum Red Hydrogen One in Black and Shadow for $1295. The Titanium models will only become available in 2019 and in very limited quantities.
The delay this time is due to a part needing to be retooled and recertified forcing the launch dates to be pushed back. Hopefully, barring any other problems that might pop up there won’t be any more hold-ups. However, they make no promises and Red hopes you will be patient with them as they try to put out the best possible product.
Some more good news is if you are willing to beta test for them you can get your hands on an early developer model called Houdini starting August 31st. In order to get your hands on the ever elusive Houdini, there are some conditions. These include having a pre-order already in place, agreeing to their terms, and anyone affiliated with a competing company is automatically disqualified.
Their terms are reasonable for those of you familiar with pre-release products. These terms include:
- No dissembling of the Hydrogen One
- No posting of bad photos taken with the Hydrogen One
- No talking bad about the Hydrogen One until after the official release date in November
- You must update the phone weekly
- You have to give them feedback through their app about bugs and how to improve the phone
While they do limit you from talking bad about the phone Red has no issue if you want to post good things about it online or photos of the actual phone. If you break any of these rules they can and will brick your phone remotely.
Some of the other drawbacks of being in the Houdini program are that it only comes in the Black Aluminum option. You’ll also be giving up your pre-order Red Hydrogen One and they are on a first come first serve basis. If you’re still interested in signing up then you better email Red quickly.
Only time will tell if Red can hit these new release dates, but it is a good sign that developer models are scheduled to go out soon. As always Red states if you are unsatisfied for any reason you are free to cancel your pre-order. If not then strap in cause you’ve only got a couple more months before they start shipping, hopefully.
