After announcing a no-strings-attached invite-free sale for the Indian market for tomorrow, the folks at OnePlus just revealed their plans of selling the phone invite-free in other markets. What’s good is that the invite free will not be a one-off thing, but a weekly event.
If OnePlus ship to your country, you’ll be able to purchase the phone without requiring an invite on Tuesdays, with the sale open for 24 hours. Each Tuesday, the sale will start at 8 am GMT (London time) and go on for the next 24 hours. Those that purchase the phone during this will be given their share of invites, which can be redeemed during the remaining 6 days of the week.
Gizchina News of the week
The phone continues to cost the same US$299 and US$349 for the 16GB Silk White and 64GB Sandstone Black variants, and can be purchased from the official OnePlus online store.
The question is, it’s been a good few months since the phone was announced (9 months, to be precise) and the interest has naturally dwindled… but are you still willing to purchase a 2014 flagship or would you prefer waiting for the next big thing?
Only on Tuesdays now? This is no better than an invite system, it is still selective selling. This company continues to baffle me. I am now convinced their boardroom is a group of monkeys who throw bananas at a board and go with the closest answer.
But they really do sell, the majority who buy one loves it and a lot of people are looking forward to the 2nd phone from them so cool story bro but needs more dragons and shit…
I’ll stick with Xiaomi and Meizu, I don’t need to jump through hoops to buy one.
Beside the sales #, you can easily make claim like this but neither you and I can prove it. So good job?
I just see the copious amounts of people on the OnePlus forums usually with something like “Got my OPO at last, love it!!!” In their signature… Lot of love for it over there 😉
You look at most other mobile device forums and they’re usually full of complaints and general negativity toward the device…
I’m not saying that it’s all lollipops and rainbows over there, but for the most part it’s positive stuff 🙂
Well yeah, I guess the One Plus One forum is filled with happy One Plus One owners, they’re the same people who bend over backward to get invite after all.
I have seen numerous complaints about the yellow screen, touch screen not working correctly, charging issues, random reboots and a host of other problems for the OPO on multiple Android forums and impartial reviews. They must filter those out on the OPO forums and only keep the “I love my OPO” comments.
It’s all lies, They’re not even square…
On a serious note, why do you hate them so much? Ever since I’ve spoken positively about my experience with my OnePlus One and OnePlus as a company here you’ve done nothing but slag them off… It’s without a shadow of a doubt the best phone I’ve ever owned and believe me I’ve seen a lot of crap come out of China in the last few years…
I think it must all stem back to you not being able to get your hands on one very easily and therefore you threw all of your toys out of the pram when really if you followed them from early on you would have got an invite for being an ‘early supporter’ or with very little effort you could have got an invite on the forum, or there has always been the reseller option which is how most Chinese devices are purchased anyway…
Or is it because you’re sucking up to Andi I wonder because you know he’s not keen on the OPOs? I just can’t figure you out… Do enlighten me please and tell me what you hate about it all so much???
I could care less what Andi or anyone else here thinks. I don’t like OPO because they are one of the shadiest companies I have ever seen. All I see from this company is lies and false promises. I know plenty of people who really wanted one camped out on the forums like you say and never got an invite. OPO had a chance to win me over as a customer they failed miserably. Xiaomi won me over. I was a loyal Gionee and THL fan up until last year, I was willing to give Xioami, Miezu or OPO a chance to win me as a customer. Two succeeded by offering excellent phones that I could buy without having to worship the ground they walk on, on their forums on a daily basis.
Any complains that don’t agree with the “OPO is the greatest” is a lie?? That is laughable at best. I guess Android Authority, Phone Dog and XDA all are spreading lies about your precious company. It’s all a conspiracy theory isn’t it? How much does OPO pay you to defend them to death?
Haha I wish they did pay me… That’d be nice… Ye, it all comes down to personal preference I guess, I really want to like Xiaomi, I really really thought about buying into their whole product range but they lost me when I saw just how little they care about supporting the English language (MiTV, Mi Router etc…) Meizu just seem overpriced to me and the initial lack of 64gb with the MX4 didn’t grab me either…
I just wish you had seen that it really isn’t like you say “worship the ground they walk on, on their forums on a daily basis.” I didn’t and still don’t do any of that, I’m not ranked very high on the forum over there and I don’t hang out on there all day either… It caught my eye early 2014 after I read about it on Gizchina, I immediately signed up to the forum and I got an invite not long after… Easy!
And with regards to the blogs and review sites, people will punch holes in anything when they really want to…
Gina Trapani has one from All About Android and she speaks highly of it, is she being paid by OPO too..?
Some complaints are people just trying to make OPO look bad, just like some of the over the top praise is doing the opposite. It’s like that with every product in the world. But that usually only accounts for a minor percentage, a lot of the gripes with OPO are the same gripes that people have had with OPPO and Vivo in the past (OPO is the same company). Your may have found it easy there are countless others who didn’t, otherwise it wouldn’t be such a major issue across the internet. If it really was that easy it would be a non story. Kind of like Xiaomi with Flipkart in India, if they had enough stock to last more than a few minutes it wouldn’t be a story. But in both cases it is a story. There are people in India who post just like you that they simply logged on early and were able to get a phone.
Xiaomi is still a young company and most of their products aren’t sold in English speaking countries officially. They have a minor presence in the Philippines and Malaysia and are just not extending to India. The only ones that are officially supported in English speaking countries are the phones which all have good English language support. The cost of Meizu Mx4 is $449 delivered and that includes all custom taxes. If you can buy a OPO from them the cost was significantly cheaper. But most couldn’t and had to resort to re-sellers where the cost would come very close to the Mx4.
While I don’t completely agree with you, I don’t mind being impartial and defending strong points made by both sides of the fence. It is true that I’ve seen some issues with the OnePlus One devices, sure. I’ve seen them posted on the OnePlus forums. I’ve seen no filtering on that forum based on what the community has stated and, as far as the forum goes, the individuals there are quite loyal to OnePlus. The majority of them enjoy the device they’ve purchased and there is nothing wrong with that.
I don’t think OnePlus are any more shady than most other Chinese manufactures seem to be here in the U.S. What I disagree with, however, is their business model. An invite system makes sense for a FEW months. Generate media, loyal fan base, etc. We are general consumers, however, and we should not have to jump through hoops after nine months to buy a handset. OnePlus may have a loyal fan base now but they’ve mostly lost the general consumer base who never got to purchase a handset. If I have to jump through hoops and can’t get a handset because I am not ‘special’ enough to the company, then I will take my business elsewhere.
With that said, in response to Mr. balcobomber25, I have the same sentiments of Xiaomi. Xiaomi states that it is not ready for the U.S. market and I get that. However, because of this, individuals in the U.S. or in the many markets that they don’t do business in have to jump through hoops to get their handsets as well. This usually involved paying high markups to resellers to have the device imported. I’ve owned a Xiaomi device and it wasn’t half bad. But obtaining Xiaomi or Meizu in the U.S. usually requires a decent amount of money. The OnePlus One, however, is offered in the U.S. with no markup. You just need the invite.
Yep, I’ll hold my hands up there and agree with you on the invite system and how it was ok at the start but really should’ve been removed quite a while back and I also agree on the Xiaomi/Meizu point too…
What I don’t understand about Xiaomi is how people say they won’t enter the US because they’ll get taken to court straight away but why didn’t OnePlus get taken to court when they entered all these western countries and stepped on all the big players feet?
I also think that if and when Xiaomi and Meizu do enter the west directly, we won’t be paying the same or even similar prices as China do because apparently us western folk have extremely deep pockets and can afford it… (Not!!!)
Xiaomi has no immediate plans to enter the US because they are focusing more on developing nations like India. But the next two countries Hugo Barra said they will enter is Brazil and Mexico, which means they are inching closer to opening factories in those countries for eventual sales in the US/Canada. If they do the US will see similar prices to what China and India is seeing which is around $325 for flagships.
I don’t blatantly defend Xiaomi to the death though. I can admit they make some boneheaded decisions and hold them accountable for them. Most Opo fans can’t do that. I don’t live in the states, I live in Thailand which isn’t an officially supported OPO country so even if I was available on a random Tuesday or had an invite I still couldn’t purchase one. Unless you live in those 17 countries that are supported you have to buy one off the secondhand market which then ends up costing the same as Xioami or Meizu. It’s essentially the same as Xiaomi not being available in the west.
6 invites passed through my hands and I participated only in one event…. if you ask for one invitation in the forum you can easily get one
I gave up after the first month and bought a Mi4. Have never been happier. My next phone is going to be either the Mi Note or the new Huawei Ascend.
I gave both OPPO and OPO a chance to win me over as a customer. OPPO failed with horrible quality and customer service. OPO failed by not being able to deliver what they promised.
But there I guess hunreds of stores you can buy it from without an invite anyway.
Yes you can and most of those stores jack up the price. When you factor in shipping and customs you can pay close to $500 on some sites. For that price you can get just about every Flagship from China and even some from Korea.
It’s $342 with free shipping from Aliexpress.
And I got my Mi4 for $350 with free shipping. When the price is similar I prefer the Mi4. I would never order from Aliexpress though, too many bad experiences even from “trusted” sellers. We all have our opinions though.
I,m coming at this from a different point of view.the main reason I got the one plus was for the development community. I had a mediatek phone before and due to them not releasing sources there was no original development going on just rehashes of other ROMs .opeplus has been open from the start and has embraced the community so we have many great roms gracing the phone.also you still cannot buy a phone with the same specs for any where near the price of the one and it may be last years tech but it is still this years best phone for its price.invites are easy to obtain and I enjoyed speaking with others on the forum to get one .only took a few hours and with over a million sold that shows how easy it is to get one .
For me the greatest ROM is MIUI (Flyme is a close second). I run MIUI on everything including my Nexus 7 and Doogee work phone. So being open isn’t as important to me.
Oneplus is open to the community, for now. With Cyanogen inking an exclusive deal with Micromax and Oneplus working on their own ROM (most likely just Color OS with a fresh coat of paint), you have to wonder if they will be as open in the future.
As for buying a phone with the same specs for near the price that couldn’t be further from the truth. The IUNI U3 and Nubia Z7 Mini both offer very similar specs within the same price range as the retail of the OPO. There’s also many of last years flagships with similar specs than can be found for even cheaper. The Mi3 is under $250 on many sites.
How about iocean M6752 ？ MT6752 CPU 3G RAM 5.5FHD 229.9USD？
2300mAh
Not to mention, as far as I have noticed, they only sell through resellers as far as the U.S. market goes. Many of those resellers seem shady as all hell to me. We’ll see where that goes.
You can replace the battery, fast charging support, a fast charger accessories，5V 2A，
Or I can just buy phone with bigger battery, never worry about it dying midway through the day and charge at night.
3000ma use also in a day ，so you need a power bank。
Says who? My G4S can even last through 2 days with no problem.
Why not every second Tuesday in the month of February of every third leap year?
if after 9 months, you still don’t have enough stock to sell phones without an invitation, you are probably one of the worst companies in history and I don’t see how a company like this could compete on a western market.
The problem is OPO took a major gamble thinking that the price of the parts would decline. They didn’t and OPO was losing money on every handset they made, so they created false shortages to consumers. At the same time though the secondhand market was flooded with devices all selling for anywhere from 20-50% more than the retail price.
Too late…. 1+1? your phone is history… keep it for yourself…
Alibaba’s investment in Meizu must have this company shitting its pants. Look at the MX4 and MX4 pro. Those are amazing phones. Things can only get better from here on for Meizu.
That being said, OnePlus is likely to release the next version a couple of months down the line. Would like to see if this company can innovate further.
Meizu is set to take on Xiaomi for China’s top spot. They always had the product they just never had the capital to compete. That could all change with a few more moves like this.
Yeah but Meizu’s phones are still too overpriced internationally…
Not entirely you can get the MX4 for $449 which includes shipping and customs taxes. That is the same price as most other flagships will cost you with shipping, depending where you live.
As many others are stating – it is true that the OnePlus One was a pretty nice flagship handset. That was nine months ago. I understand the invite system existing for two or three months to generate interest and media coverage as well as a loyal fan base. It makes sense for a few months. For nine months, however? Sorry, but I am a general consumer and they are the company. They should want my business, not vice versa. If I have to jump through hoops to purchase their handset, or if I have to wait nine months to purchase the device because I am not special enough to them, then I’ll take my business elsewhere.
One plus one is a good phone and very competitive to Xiaomi I4 (and it has been there for more than 6 months), the invite system does not really work well, as due to invite system there is shortage and some elements who can get invites are milking the potential customers of one plus one by selling invites. This has become a mess as many potential buyers are moving away from Invite service due to this. This new idea is better way to make the phone more available and thus in a way reduce the harm that these scalpers can do.