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If you were annoyed by the “antics” OnePlus has resorted to for selling their first smartphone, then you might get a kick out of their latest actions. The company has decided to sell 15 invites to buy the phone on eBay — and here we were worried that selling invites on eBay would be attempted by a few bad apples in an otherwise good bunch.
There’s a catch, though — it’s for a good cause, so I guess we can’t chastise them too much. Whichever individual wins the eBay auction for the invites will be happy to know that the money raised will go to one of four charities that forum members are voting for over at the OnePlus community:
- Water.org
- Unicef
- World Wildlife Fund
- 1% for the Planet
From there, whoever wins the 15 invites are free to do with them whatever they wish. I’m not going to get too virulent in spitting my opinion on the OnePlus One invite system debacle here, but I will say that they should be looking to put an end to this sooner than later — there’s only so long some folks will be able to hold out with attractive options like the newly-announced LG G3 around the corner. We’re still hunting down the eBay auction if you’re interested, so check back periodically for the link.
[via OnePlus]
LOL. This company is a complete joke.
OnePlus One is becoming a OneMinus One = zero, fast.
This sounds like a decent idea because they’re giving the profit from the eBay sale to a charity, but the person that wins the invites can easily turn right around and try to sell them for $600 a pop on eBay. This just makes me shake my damn head. I really like OnePlus… they’re just starting to make it very hard to admit that.
Speaking of e-Bay,has the invite sale actually went active yet?
Only thing I ‘m seeing is some people that have more $ than sense bidding on OPO pre-sales from 3rd parties,with bids more than doubling the MSRP.
Thank god the G3 was announced. I hope it drives Oneplus out of business.
Out of business? Cold world.
It may be cold but it might happen if this ridiculousness continues. If thousands of people possibly want to buy your device but can’t you’re in serious trouble (regardless of the reasons).
Yeah I have no problem with that, it’s the “I Hope” part that got me.
They clearly just don’t have enough money for production. Sounds like they are doing everything they can to create a buzz to attract investors so they can raise enough to start serious production. Seems annoying but if they can just manage to get off the ground and make a profit on this phone, their next phone might get launched more smoothly.
This is stupid. Starting to be turned off by this company. They haven’t even announced the winners of the raining invites. Their phone is worth less than LG’s G3 so why anyone would drop too much money on an invite is beyond me. They are drunk with the power of holding out.
Obviously a delaying tactic which is never a good sign. Underfinanced and overhyped all they really seem to be doing is losing sales to frustrated buyers. Can you imagine trying to get warranty service from these knuckeheads?
That’s why it is better to walk away now we will see these jerks crying that waited forever for a opo
Aaaand the award for most botched product launch EVER goes to OPPO!!
They clearly don’t have any supply and/or limited production at the moment. If they did, don’t you think there would be large quantities of invites being pushed out. Everything they’ve done so far have been limited to the hundreds. I was so excited for their launch event last month but this BS has made my choice easy… LG G3 for me.
Invites don’t necessarily mean the supply is there. They’re further delaying getting those people phones by putting the invites in an auction.
On top of that none of the contest winners have received invites yet either, and the initial batch of phones that went out were test models.
Actually invites is the “signal” that there are stocks in supply. It’s a guarantee that you will be able to purchase a phone.
Also they will last 24 hours before being moved to another person in the queue. It’s on the forums, check it out.
I believe there were rumors on the forums, that the first week of June would open the first batch of “huge” invites.
Sweet they have 15 phones in inventory.
I laugh at this part they won phones but they were Beta Phones who in the world would do something that retarded but OPO they could of hired some beta testers and did it in house and also got the product finish for sale this is just a Major Cluster Fk
Who cares OnePlus One with their “Hunger sale” strategy. It seems like they only make the smartphone for themselves LOL.
Here I come G3, I dont care how much it is.
I just decided to unfollow these clowns on Google+. Their motto is “Never Settle” and their 1st phone seemed to settle on many things. I know the price is amazing, but it’s not the phone for me. I’m not interested in a phablet without a removable battery/storage. I really hope their follow phone is smaller. Let’s hope Motorola and Oneplus can help bring down the price of the cell phone.
Agreed. Phone is simply too large to be pocketable.
While the charity angle is admirable, odds are that it is just what I predicted: planned shortages to boost the must-have status of the device. The problem is, they’re not an established company and the product is not unique enough to warrant hype.
A pre-order system, with availability staggered in batches, would have achieved a far better result and garnered far less ill will towards the company.
As it stands, I’m done with these clowns. Don’t make me want a phone, then tell me “May the odds be ever in your favor”.
It’s a good thing that the G3 is pretty much the +1 but better, and I can get it with a subsidy.
Let’s say they sell 15 invites at $600 a piece they have raised $9,000. Kind of chump change. Why don’t they sell a million phones and give $1 from every phone to charity. Such a confusing message it makes you 2nd guess the company. We will give away our invites for charity but we won’t let you have one. All the time remembering this is an invite and not a product. They may be working for LG because I think they will be sending a lot people their way.
Good point about the numbers. 15 invited doesn’t mean much of a donation given the total budget of the charities. Are they going to donate 100%?
They are not donating anything at all: the people buying the invites are donating and getting the privilege to buy the phone from 1+. 1+ becomes associated with a charitable cause without donating a dime, they make money selling the phone to whoever donates and the get loads of positive media attention for their non existing donation.
Genious marketing, bullshit behavior!
I want to believe…
As of today, I would still purchase the OPO as my upgrade of choice… LG G3 on the horizon is interesting but I’m doubtful they would follow suit with such great pricing – seems they’re keeping a lid on pricing plans… perhaps in part they’re waiting and seeing if OnePlus can deliver on their promises to ramp up into worldwide production quantities, in which case the pressure is on?
I don’t think LG cares about what OnePlus is doing. Okay, maybe they’ve noticed the attention garnered by the One, but they probably don’t see it as a competitor to their flagships. Personally, I’m deciding between re-upping my contract with VZW in order to get a G3 subsidized, and getting a OPO for use on pre-paid providers. So, LG OUGHT to price their G3 reasonably off-contract, but that’s not likely.
Yeah! Why would 1+ be a threat when we can’t even buy the 1+ without paying thousands to a charity? I bet LG is laughing. The one plus can’t be bought and they hyped it so much that their name will be associated with this mess of a launch.
They had a great into for the phone, the specs on paper are great and the price is fantastic, but the way they are making this phone so limited with invites is pathetic
I’m getting tired of waiting to be invited to give them money. If this isn’t available by the time the moto x+1 is here my decision they won’t be getting my money.
This device has flopped when it was announced. You have to be really tech savvy to even know the story behind their phone. They’ll never reach the masses with their methods. They didn’t execute well at all. I think they thought their name was that BIG. Unless, this is just some experiment device like a Nexus where it was never meant to go mainstream?
Very good point. Most people barely even know that Oppo exists and makes smartphones. An offshoot of the company is virtually unknown outside tech blog frequenters/techies. Sad but true.
To think that just last week I would check the forums several times daily eagerly waiting for my invite. I am now planning on purchasing the G3. I am willing to payore for a phone company that truly “Never Settles”. That, and supporting a company that doesn’t play games with customers.
I feel the same way. It was between the OnePlus One and the LG G3 for me. Now that all this has happened I’m definitely going with the G3. I did like the 64G option of the OnePlus, but the G3 has an sd slot up to 128g, so that handles that.
I was one of the ones that was interested in this from the beginning. I’m currently under contract and don’t “Need” a new phone. I would have had to get out of contract to pick this up and switch carriers.
The invites were interesting at first. The issue is (imo) that they have drug this part of the process on for far too long. Maybe a couple of weeks before availability was opened up and then if there were shortages, so be it. That is the nature of the beast sometimes. Sell the initial batch, take pre-orders, ramp up production based on interest. The biggest risk in this model would be the initial production without guaranteed customers. Judging from the initial interest, I would say that wouldn’t have been a problem. Now that the enthusiasm is starting to wane due to the perceived antics, I don’t know what I would do in their shoes.
Been a huge fan of 1+ since the beginning and is one of the early supporters, but this whole system with invites and then the early release to China and now this whole auction thing has gotten out of hand. They don’t provide details to the community and play with our emotions of the possibility of getting this phone. Can’t say I don’t want it anymore, because I do, I’m just sick of the way 1+ is executing this device release. They are really pissing off the community of enthusiast.
I was excited about this phone until I heard about the invites. I had some reasonable doubt to dismiss them off completely though. Well given the way they are giving away the invites and failing to provide full boxes to people who broke their phones I don’t trust them anymore. Now I’m waiting for moto X+1 and will decide between G3 and X+1
LG G3. Have a nice day.
Really… REALLY?!?! WTF is wrong with this company? They announced a device with no supply in order to take some thunder off major manufacturers but then completely blow it thereafter.
If I do end up holding out for this I’m still questioning how much I can count on them for updates. They’ll probably tell Cyanogen to stop wasting resources or to just let it die. Shameful.
This company is retarded I am going with the blu life pure xl same damn phone almost with out the BS
Almost but not quite. You’re better off getting a Nexus 5 vs Blu any day.
Negatives vs the One tho are 4.2, single flash, no 4k capture, no LTE, and bit lower processor.
Bottom line tho if you don’t go Nexus wait for the X+2 at least because I can never recommend Blu. Just the loss of LTE and updates is huge.
To the contrary Blu has HSPA+ 4G its fast enough for me I have a true lte phone and my current blue play x loads pages 10x faster also they are updating to kitkat this June they have support people need to research more
I knew that, I research Blu and all manufacturers for that matter when I’m making a purchase. And it’s okay if it works for you, as it does for many others.
But do keep in mind LTE will future proof your device, especially when towers start getting switched to LTE, and while you’re getting KitKat Google will already be probably announcing 4.X or 5.0 whatever they decide to go with… Unless Moto beats them to their own update again.
Regardless, rumors are Nexus is over so the whole market will change again, hopefully for the better but only time will tell. For the time being I don’t think either of us is going for Oneplus and we’ll be better without it as going Blu or Nexus is truly more dependable.
the G3 was unveiled 3 days ago. where can i buy an LG G3 right now?
As far as I know it’s June/July from AT&T. So there are actual dates and real releases vs Oneplus guerrilla propoganda
except they stated plainly that their phone would be generally available late in june through invite.
from this site the statement for ATT is “later this year” and from tmobile “this summer”. last time i checked those weren’t dates.
Oh my bad, I meant Sprint from a source I read.
http://www.tmonews.com/2014/05/lg-g3-bringing-its-5-5-inch-quad-hd-ips-display-to-t-mobile-later-this-summer/
Don’t try to compare releases from major corporations which release worldwide vs small time Chinese companies that won’t even have their product offered within carriers. Keep in mind what hinders releases is all the variations (bloat) that manufacturers have to add.
Furthermore it’s a copy of their sister/parent company, Oppo, hardware. It can’t take much to change a backplate.
I am an android enthusiast so spending a little extra money not to “settle” is OK by me, people spend more money on other hobbies.. The fact is that the 1+ settles to make it cheap, at least in comparison to the g3: non removable battery, no SD, no ois, and no availability. It’s fantastic for the price, but I want a phone that is purrrrrfect not just pricewise. I don’t want to settle for a bad camera (Nexus) or the shortcomings of the 1+. On the other hand I despise settling with touchwiz or any other skin slowing down the Android update process.
“Never settle” was a joke for the 1+, can’t even buy it if I wanted to.. Was really looking forward to this as I love cm. But “never settle”, no availability, smash the past idiocracy, saying they were a small start-up while really being a company owned by oppo, and now selling the privilege to be a customer leaves bad taste in my mouth.
Praying the g3 will get a Google play edition or have great cm support. That for me I can settle with.. Until the next great phone comes along that is
And one more thing in this rant: this b***s**t “invites for a cause” is just a dirt cheap marketing mumbo jumbo! They are not giving any money to a good cause whoever buys the invites do, yet 1+ gets perceived as concerned with society and gets ton of free advertising like this article! Stop giving free advertising to a phone we can’t even buy phandroid, android authority, android police etc!!!
1+ should not spend their energy marketing and pretending to be something their not! They should focus on producing the phone they hyped for the past year instead! What a joke!
What are you talking about? Of course they’re doing it for marketing. But who cares. Charity gets the money, 1+ gets attention. Win win. Go sit in your rocking chair yelling at kids to get off your lawn grandpa.
they use oppo factories to make the 1+1 just like google used LG and samsung to make the nexus. this isn’t a lemonade stand or a restaurant startup. you need factories to make phones in and employees to work in those factories. oppo provided these things which why they took 6 months to get going instead of 2 years.
again, the G3 isn’t out yet. as far as removable battery, SD, and ois, those are preference things. if the battery lasts all day you don’t need to remove it, 64GB will satisfy most, and we don’t really know how either camera stacks up in reality(no, do not refer to the reviews which used beta models).
the “smash the past idiocracy” had 86 of the 100 contestants donate their phones. they all got beta models for field-testing. as a reward for helping 1+ identify bugs they all will receive 64GB final versions to replace what they got free. that’s not “idiocracy”, thats great customer service. as far as the cheap packaging is concerned, the winners were notified by email ahead of time about how the phones would be shipped. makes sense since they were only beta models. they’ll receive the real packaging along with new phones.
but don’t mind me, i’m just posting facts. i know facts are boring.
If you had your facts straight maybe your post would be a little more interesting.
Oneplus One is NOT just using the factories to produce their phones, they are a daughter-company of Oppo, which means its Oppo-owned. You know like facebook owns instagram.
removable battery might not be a deal breaker, but being able to swap battery when the battery is worn you can reuse the phone or give it to your mom with a fresh battery. OnePlus One “settled” on a non-removable. I also believe most people would prefer an SD as opposed to not have one, but the OnePlus settled.
The smash the past competition was not marketed like you are proposing. People was supposed to smash their perfectly usable phones, not give them to charity, not recycle them, but smash them and make a “fun video”!! The fact that most people in the competition were smart enough to see the BS and not smash their phone is not exactly a compliment to OnePlus. OnePlus changed the rules after a massive storm of complaints giving the contestants the opportunity to donate.
BETA testing?! That has not been their marketing if you have paid any attention! “The flagship killer that never settles and will provide the best specs available no matter what” a phone they LAUNCHED in several countries all over the world, but they have no availability!! BETA?! Please… I remember several contestant winners surprised when they received an unboxed phone with no charger on their doorstep.. unknowing beta testers more likely!
OIS a preference really??!? Having optical image stabilization is not a preference – its just better! Especially since the G3 and Oneplus uses the same Sony camera module.
As for this campaign they are not donating anything at all: the people buying the invites are donating and getting the privilege to buy the phone from 1+. 1+ becomes associated with a charitable cause without donating a dime, they make money selling the phone to whoever donates and the get loads of positive media attention for their non existing donation.
You Sir are a moron, not “humans in general” as you have posted earlier!
just…no on everything
oneplus is still looking at other investors. oppo ELE(which owns oppo mobile as well) is their soul investor for the time being. giving oppo ELE all shares is the trade off for using their factories. that was the only way to go about it as peter lau and the other 1+ employees aren’t independently wealthy. don’t be fooled by the fact that phone looks like an oppo find. the nexus looked like a galaxy phone when samsung made it and looked like an L series phone when LG made it with a few design tweeks.
your making a case based on an assumption that these batteries are going to wear out within a year. how has that worked out for the 10s of millions of iphone users? same thing for lack of Sd card slot. 1+ “settled” for offering a internal storage offering that no one else is offering besides apple at a much lower price. if you have more storage than you would use, why do you need to expand it?
100,000 signed up for the smash contest so obviously the majority didnt care. no one was forced to participate. the only thing i didnt like about it was the fact that the phones that qualified could’ve been sold to buy 2 1+1s. be a different story if you were allowed to smash your galaxy s2.
BETA testing. that’s what is was about. should they have told those winners ahead of time, probably. they made it up to them by giving them free final version phones in place of what they got. bugs were identified and ironed out and they’ve already pushed out a updated CM11s version for the phone. no winners were surprised about the packaging except the one who had their phone stolen through the mail and those non-winners who never got the memo.
again, 4/23 was an unveiling just like 5/27 was an unveiling for the G3. neither phone is out yet.
again, we don’t know just how much better the G3 camera over the 1+ until we see them in action.
yeah it’s called free marketing and for a good cause. don’t know when free marketing channels all of a sudden became a crime.
more boring facts i guess..
You obviously do not understand how investments work. What do you think Oppo gets for their investment? Equity. Potato potato.
I do need to expand the memory, just because you settled on 64gb does not mean everyone else can. That is why its great to have the option to expand it – never settle remember?
The marketing is not for a good cause, because the charity barley gets any money, the marketing is obvisously for their phone – duh! I never said it was a crime, I said it was BS and it seems like a lot of people agree.
If you have to read every disclaimer and every little small print to understand that nothing about their company is what they portray it to be they have a problem. Also consider that I am a huge CM-fan and I am very dissapointed along with a lot of others who was expecting a phone that did not settle on nearly every aspect and just blame it on taste… CM is not about the CM-teams taste, it is about the customiziability. With their phone I can’t even expand the memory which you know as well as I is a dealbreaker for many users.
i understand that they are looking for other investors besides oppo ELE and that other than allowing them to use their factories they aren’t funding this company at all hence the invite system for inventory control. 1+1 is on their own. they said from jump that they were set up to not make a profit for 2 years. none of this takes away from the fact that they are indeed a startup but money and capital don’t grow on trees.
again, they settled for including an onboard storage capacity that no one is offering except apple at a much lower price. i didn’t “Settle” for 64GB, it far exceeds my storage needs. same for many others. the days of actually needing expandable memory because all that was being offered were 16Gb options is soon to disappear. the real dealbreaker is not having enough storage and not so much about not being able to use an Sd card. the demand for expandable storage is going to go away once 64Gb internal storage becomes standard and 128GB internal storage is more prevalent. keep in mind that google is slowly killing off apps to SD support because app developers don’t like the memory partitioning involved with exapandable storage and with sammy and others still offering 16GB variants you’re gonna run out of storage quickly and Sd cards won’t help you. higher capacity internal storage is the future. then there’s the cloud but there are very good reasons for that not being a viable option.
of course their marketing it for the phone(duh!) but saying the charity won’t get most of the proceeds? where did you read that? ebay cancelled the auction anyway so they’re probably not gonna do it now.
there was no small print, there were threads explaining these things prominently for everyone to see. if you don’t want to read what has been posted in their forums that’s your fault. they gave you all the info, do your due diligence and read it.
I Knew this was going to happen good luck trying to get invites lol Pathetic
It’s funny the One+ Forum has Devout faith in this damn phone they are looking like Brainwashed goons FLAGSHIP KILLER getting killed by Negative headlines lol didn’t see this coming (derp)
1+1 is a victim of the fact that the average human being is stupid. the 1+ forums are a grand example of this. so many people who simply can’t read. its gotta be frustrating for 1+ to make things crystal clear and have complete morons not understand a word they’re saying.
they never told anyone the phone was gonna be generally available on 4/23. it was an unveiling. they plainly stated that general availability would be later in the month of june. i would love for any of these brilliant minds complaining about waiting to tell me about all the upcoming phones that have been officially announced for general availability in june. and please don’t tell me how you have now heard rumors about better phones down the road. yeah ok great, have fun waiting longer and then realizing that it’s gonna take just as long for that phone to be generally available for purchase after full unveiling as the 1+1.
people need to shut up about the G3. its not out yet. you want to buy it from korea? knock yourself out, just know that it won’t work on any of your LTE bands. 1+1 has pre-orders going in their home country too. the fact is both these phones will be generally available at the same time.
no one has been lied to or strung along. people are just darn stupid. they came out with contests explaining the rules and how many people had a chance to win. yeah, only 100 for smash 150 for raining invites and 15 for this contest, plus invites to early supporters. thats way to little? what do you want? THE PHONE ISN’T GENERALLY AVAILABLE YET! the contests give people a chance to get the phone a bit early.
1+ is doing just fine. the fact that people can’t read a drew their own conclusions isn’t their fault. either people are retards or the competing companies have hired people to troll the 1+ forums.
A brainwashed fool, you are.
ok, prove it.
What he stating is fact.
I’m pretty sure I said it was only a matter of time before we see invites go up on eBay. Just didn’t think it would be so soon, and from the company itself.
No thanks! Got an invite to purchase a lg g3 pretty soon here… As a matter of fact! You’re all invited!
you have the officially announced date for general availability?
I was pretty stoked for the OnePlus One, but they’ve kinda killed it for me. I’m just patiently waiting for the Moto X+1 at this point.
Seriously, E bay??? Where people go to sell their used goods…. This whole One+ “do this / do that, sign up for this, sign up for that” is just killing me. I am now officially turned off on this phone & company. I am awaiting the LG G3 with bated breath, sorry One+ You are just over doing it. O V E R K I L L
OnePlus can jerk everyone around with their silly invite scheme if they want, but by the time they stop jerking, the G3 will be available for everyone and people will forget about the dumb OnePlus games.
So now some of you are understanding how the Chinese do business. Buying a product made in China and sold by US companies is one thing. Buying a product made and sold By China is completely something else. Be forewarned.