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.