While the folks behind Chinese startup OnePlus have run some promotional stunts recently, the company has earned kudos for for offering a high-quality smartphone at a reasonably low price.

Unfortunately it’s hard to actually buy one of the phones. There are limited quantities available, so OnePlus has implemented an invitation system and if you don’t have an invite you can’t get a phone.

That could change starting in October.

oneplus one

During an “Ask Me Anything” session on reddit yesterday, a member of the OnePlus team said that the company is working on a pre-order system that could be ready to go live in October.

That means you still might not be able to place an order and get your phone shipped immediately… but at least you won’t have to smash your old phone or post a selfie on the internet and let people vote on it to get an invitation.

The OnePlus One features a 5.5 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel display. a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, 3GB of RAM, a 13MP camera and a 3100mAh battery. It runs a custom version of Google Android developed by Cyanogen and a 16GB model sells for $299 while a 64GB version costs $349.

Of course by the time October rolls around, Motorola, Samsung, and maybe Apple will have announced new phones which could make the OnePlus One “flagship killer” look a bit less attractive. On the other hand, while some of those phones might have better specs, it’s unlikely that those phones will also have better prices than the OnePlus One.

via GizChina

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24 replies on “OnePlus is killing its smartphone invite system, hopes to launch pre-orders in October”

  1. Typing this ony one plus one right now. Its a really top notch product. Yes the invite system is painful, but I have better than a G3 at less than half the cost. I wish I could get another invite so I’d buy a second one for my wife.
    I’ve had 3 updates in 2 weeks thanks to cyanogen mod. That’s 2 more than I got in 2 years from Samsung.

  4. The childish, demeaning antics that the company pulled that people had to do in order to “win” the honor of buying one of these phones has turned me off from buying one if they were ever to become available. (And I was seriously considering it.)

    1. I agree, I spent weeks trying to get an invite. After that much frustration, you couldn’t pay me to use their phone.

      1. ……
        It’s call luck. I got an invite and never entered a contest. Just signed up for invite when they first announced.

        1. I know how it works. I’m saying it’s a horrible way to treat customers. And unfortunately for them, this fantastic value phone is losing value by the day.

          1. Wtf? How have they mistreated customer? Its a very common marketing strategy. Radio stations have been doing it for ages.

          2. Selling a product and running a radio contest are two different things. If you have customers waiting with cash in hand, but make them jump through hoops just for the privilege to buy your product, your customers will go elsewhere.

  5. I have no iossue with ordering and being given a shipped by date (doesn’t Google do this when they are low on Nexus devices?) Just don’t bill me until it ships but knowing that I will get it is fine as long as you keep me informed if they is a change in the ship date. Wht they didn’t do this from the beginning is beyond me and tells me that they were some very stupid men (had to be with that selfie campaign) running the marketing. Here’s one for you OnePlus – customer buys the phone, if they send you a vid of they impressions of the phone (or post it on their youtube and send the link) you say thanks with a back of their choice.They cannot be censorship by the company – because even criticism is good if you wnat to improve.

  6. I have a 64 GB seal in box. Thinking about if I should keep it or wait for the new nexus. 5.5″ is out of my comfort zone in term of size.

  7. meanwhile, ppl in countries with the same gsm bands as china can get their hands on imported sets from china

    1. This, all of this. Over in the UK a 64GB model costs £270, whereas the chinese variant of the oneplus one costs £280 atm. No invites, mostly works fine (you can use 4G on Three and EE only but they’re the biggest 4G networks atm). I don’t see how this situation makes sense to oneplus, waiting for invites only makes sense in the US where you really need that different baseband chip for your 4G networks. I’m gonna order one shortly because my nexus 4 is on the blink.

      1. UK uses TDD-LTE like China? Now I want to move there…. Tech compatibility of China without the China part LOL

        1. LTE-FDD is still supported by the Chinese model, and it just happens to cover bands we actually use over here

  8. Well isn’t this peachy. Mine arrives today… although to be fair I didn’t spend 3 months waiting for an invite, just half an hour on their facebook page listening to people complain about the invite system.

    It worked for gmail, I suppose – however gmail didn’t have to ramp up logistics and supply to meet demand, these guys do.

    1. So did they just give everyone that was complaining a code or something?

      1. No, just had to wait around for someone to post that they had an invite. Happened to be the first to respond – lucky I guess 🙂

      2. Everyone that has bought the phone (at least the first 60k approx) has received at least 3 sharable invites. It is not as difficult as people say to get an invite. I used about an hour a day for a little over a week on the forums before getting an invite.

Comments are closed.