OnePlus will launch the OnePlus 3 on June 14th — and this time, you won’t need a special invitation code to buy one.
Beginning with the OnePlus One and continuing with the OnePlus 2 and OnePlus X, you needed to track down an invite code for the privilege of exchanging some of your money for a (admittedly good value) smartphone. It made sense for OnePlus — it built hype among Android users and allowed them to dish out their limited stock very efficiently — but it also engendered annoyance among those that weren’t able to locate a code in time.
Here’s OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei talking to Wired about the move:
“In year three it’s really hard to keep asking people to understand that you’re a young company and still trying to understand how to handle a supply chain. It’s about time that we stopped giving ourselves excuses.”
For the OnePlus 3 launch, the invite code system is going away entirely; you’ll just turn up at the website, punch in your details and get a phone in the mail. There’s still one wrinkle though — if you have a VR headset, like the one that OnePlus sent out for free last month to some users, you’ll be able to order a OnePlus 3 in the Loop VR app two hours ahead of everyone else.
OnePlus are also changing their tactics for their back catalogue of smartphones, offering the OnePlus One, OnePlus 2 and OnePlus X on Amazon.co.uk (and potentially other retailers too). We should expect this to happen for the OnePlus 3 eventually too, so if you’d prefer Amazon’s (generally stellar) support, that will be an option too.
What do you think of the move? Will you be hammering ‘F5’ on the OnePlus site come June 14th at 5:30PM? Let us know in the comments below, or write to us on Twitter @mobilefun!