OnePlus has announced that its sought-after Android flagship smartphone will be available to purchase without invite today, October 12. Consumers interested in getting their hands on OnePlus 2 will have a one-hour window to complete their purchase before the company goes back to its invite-only system.
This is the first time that OnePlus 2 is officially sold without an invite, so, to avoid any issues with the ordering system, the one-hour window will start at noon in every major region. Outside of it, consumers will need to have an invite to snap up a OnePlus 2.
The one-hour window in North America starts at 12 pm PDT today, while in Europe it is at 12:00 CEST. Sales in Asia have already ended at the time of writing this article, having started at 12:00 HKT. India has received special treatment, with Amazon starting sales two and half hours later than in the wider region, at 12:00 pm IST.
While OnePlus says there is no limit on the number of orders you can place in that one-hour window, you can only have a maximum of two OnePlus 2 units per order. I can only assume this is so that customers can get a OnePlus 2 as early as possible; those who will place multiple orders will likely have to wait a while longer to get all of them delivered.
I also suspect orders placed in this one-hour window will be delivered at a later date to those placed with invites. "As we are expecting high demand, the order processing days may differ from the normal times. Your estimated shipping timeframe will be displayed at checkout during the open sale. If you receive an invite for the OnePlus 2, but if you already have an order pending from the open sale, you are welcome to cancel your open sale order and re-order with your invite to skip the wait", says OnePlus.
OnePlus 2 is available in two versions, one with 16 GB of internal storage and 3 GB of RAM, that costs $349 and the other with 64 GB of internal storage and 4 GB of RAM, that goes for $399. To find out more information about the device, check out our coverage. We will have a review of the latter model up on the site shortly.
OnePlus has basically screwed up the launch of OnePlus 2, which has caused its co-founder Carl Pei to apologize and, to appease prospective customers, promise this one-hour window.