One of the most widely criticized parts of OnePlus‘ campaign to sell its maiden smartphone, the OnePlus One, has been its handling of device distribution and its use of the maddeningly exclusive invite system. Stopping short of admitting the invite system was a mistake, OnePlus went on the record about a month ago to say that they would instead be using a pre-order system starting in October. OnePlus has finally announced that these OnePlus One pre-orders are going to start on October 27th, but with one teeny, tiny, big detail: the pre-orders are only going to be open for an hour.
Yes, you read that correctly. According to OnePlus’ blog post, on October 27th 15:00 GMT, people can pre-order the OnePlus One for one solitary hour. It would seem that the pre-order system isn’t actually what we thought it was going to be, and in fact, OnePlus says at the bottom of the post:
“While the pre-order system won’t completely replace the current invites method, it is certainly a huge step towards expanding the reach of OnePlus.”
While the OnePlus One is still fantastic value for flagship level hardware specifications, and OnePlus did give away 50,000 invites a few weeks ago, the combination of the pre-order and invites system still clearly lacks the flexibility that some people actually want when purchasing their smartphones.
What do you think about the OnePlus One pre-orders system? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Source: OnePlus via Phone Arena
