It’s really no secret that you can’t buy a OnePlus 3 here; the company’s popular Android handsets have never been sold here, despite their popularity, and so there’s little surprise that the OnePlus 3 won’t be officially sold here either.

We say that’s a real shame. While the phone isn’t perfectly suited to use here, it would nonetheless work fairly well with most of our major networks, except for the fact that you just can’t buy one.

We think OnePlus should stop ignoring the Australian market, and realise that we have a major enthusiast market here, which would likely clamour for the OnePlus 3 if they’d actually sell it. We’ve investigated this before, and were sent some incomprehensible marketing kit about the possibility of selling the OnePlus. Frankly, if that’s the approach for potential country partners, it’s little wonder there’s no local retail channel. Putting up barriers like that is a good way to see a market like ours ignore your product for others.

Let’s do some blue-sky thinking.

What if OnePlus 3 was available locally? What if it shipped from Sydney? What if the pricing were reasonable, and you could buy it from someone you know and trust? What if a limited number were sold on the Ausdroid Shop?

Would you buy one?

Let us know with the poll below, and in the comments with your discussion. We want to share this with OnePlus and make the case for never settling for ignoring the Australian market.

 

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jjcoolaus

I’d get it for use with my Vodafone sim card. Could replace my nexus 6p which I’ve been a bit disappointed with.

Jishnu Viswanath

Like which one for that price?

Anusha Dharmasena

Probably the LG G5

Jishnu Viswanath

thats 650$ while OP3 is 400$

Anusha Dharmasena

That’s the USA price. In Aus, you can get the G5 for about AUD600 from eBay sellers. The OnePlus3 would cost the same.

Jishnu Viswanath

Its 630$ thats cheapest I can find.. Op3 is not available locally.. the question was will you buy it if it’s available locally.

Anusha Dharmasena

My mistake.

0nyx

never had any problems with optus on my OP2, I guess it depends where you live (I’m in vic)

Marné Prinsloo

Sunshine Coast, QLD. Optus only got 4g here like 3 years ago

Prepagan

I’m happy with my OnePlus One on Band 3 with Telstra (Boost). The OnePlus 2 wasn’t of any interest to me but, if I didn’t have to pay more than $500, I’d seriously consider getting the 3. If I could get it via Ausdroid, I’d be even more likely to take the jump.

ACA7

Memory management akin to an elephant who doesn’t remember what he had as feed today. The price seems good for the specs until you discover attention to detail and refinement is not included in the box. The problem is you can’t really buy that as an accessory afterwards…

Pabrinex

Band support is the issue

Mindful

Yeah pretty much, I got a Oneplus 1 and 2; both have unreliable cellular reception

Marné Prinsloo

Tbh, optus on the Opo was bad. Telstra was a lot better. Not perfect though

Fred

Too big, too low a resolution (daydream means it needs to be 1440p+), no microSD, no Qi charging, only 3000mAH battery, slow OS updates, and above all …

no proper band support and still overpriced.

It’s a commodity item, there’s nothing special about it (and 6GB is pointless). That means the price should have been going down, not up. And I still can’t understand why phone manufacturers continue to miss the key points people look for.

Let’s face it, with the way its not selling, the LG G5 will be this price soon.

Pumpino

The G5 is already that price. T-Dimension has been selling it for $602 on eBay.

Peter Chen

It has dash charging and multiple test shows its better than quick charge in many ways.

IT Enquirer

If they made a version that supports all the Australian network bands I would seriously consider it along with the next Nexus phone.

Max Luong

Not interested. It’s too big

Skull

They lost me with the first one and their ridiculous “Invite” system. I have better things to do with my time than disappoint myself needlessly. Not to mention the issues they have had “hardware/software wise”. Really, established companies have viable choices which I can walk straight into a shop and walk out with one working in my hand RIGHT NOW. I have also heard there are some issues with Australian 3G/4G coverage with these units? Not sure , but also don’t care.

Tom

Definitely would; as long as there was some kind of warrenty or returns if there’s a fault.
LTE doesn’t worry me in the slightest.

strupper2003

I
would. Sold my Oneplus One last week with the intention of buying the
Oneplus 3. Generally happy when specs announced during launch At
slightly above AUD600, its not exactly cheap but I wouldn’t mind. BUT
getting one still involves jumping through hoops. Last night, I bought a
brand new Samsung Galaxy S7 for $680. Yeap, arguably the flagship
Oneplus wanna kill.

Resident TL Snitcher

Yea i aint spending 600 on a phone that doesn’t fully support Australian 4G

Adam Purves

If you guys were an official stockist than I’d definitely but it from you (providing there’s not much Australia tax). Although I’d love complete LTE band support, I’d rather just get a distributor in Australia first. At least you’d have some warranty support and local news. I wonder what the market currently is in Australia. 1000+ sales?

mrjayviper

What happens with warranty/after sales support?

Marné Prinsloo

I need the phone to work on our bands. Do we know if it covers our Optus 4g, Telstra 4g bands??

Duncan_J

Hey Marne, all but the 700 MHz band, check out our PSA post on the OnePlus. PS bot said to say hi!

Marné Prinsloo

I kinda miss bot. Ok so if 700 isn’t supported, Telstra still has 900,1800,2100. Optus still has 1800,2600. And Vodafone doesn’t use 700, has 850,2100Mhz. All those are 4G bands.

Marné Prinsloo

From GSM ARENA OP3 has the bands below for 4g. Looks like the US version has 700Mhz?

LTE band 1(2100), 2(1900), 4(1700/2100), 5(850), 7(2600), 8(900), 12(700), 17(700) – North America

LTE band 1(2100), 3(1800), 5(850), 7(2600), 8(900), 20(800), 38(2600), 40(2300), 41(2500) – Global model

Duncan_J

The European is best, the Chinese is suitable with currently used spectrum, take a look at this
http://ausdroid.net/2016/06/15/psa/

Marné Prinsloo

Ok well that link explained it well. Why TF are we still making phones that don’t have all common bands? Any truly great world phones?

Duncan_J

agreed. It is a shame as this is the first OnePlus phone that looks like it could actually challenge the big players head to head, however without DayDream support I’m not interested

GrKTcB

It’s the wrong 700Mmhz band. We need Band 28 700Mhz here in Australia.

Cheers

Jamie S

I think most people that are interested in buying one would much rather buy locally rather than buying one from another country and using a freight forwarder. I guess it all depends on the price too as if it’s over $600 then for not much more you can pick up an S7 edge or similar on eBay or Gumtree.

Duncan_J

We’ve found them on Ali Express, I’m just not happy getting a phone I know won’t support all local bands.

Pumpino

The main issue for me is the cost. I won’t pay $600 for it. I might pay $500. I don’t need 6GB and early reports suggest the camera isn’t flagship quality. That’s why I’ll get the ZenFone 3 instead – midrange specs, with excellent build quality for around $350.

Chalet_Badger

The biggest issue is that it does not support the 700mhz band, if it did and available locally I would definitely upgrade to one.

Marné Prinsloo

This makes me sadder than a cracked screen. I love Oneplus phones and this seriously blows.

Miko

I had the first and second and they were ok. However due to not being available in Aus after all this time not interested.

GrKTcB

If it was reasonably priced locally, supported all our LTE bands and could be bought in stores and online directly from them, I’d definitely consider it.

As it stands, no… Too many hoops to jump through.

Marné Prinsloo

Importing it is not a problem. Teh bandz tho. My Oneplus One (Op1) didn’t work properly on Optus. I expect the Op3 to be the same… sad. I want the GB’s of ram!!!