One Plus One: Buy It Now?

It seems that as today is a day of the week ending in a Y, we are due for some more OnePlus One news. Today while trolling around the OnePlus website looking for some nice soul to give me an invite I noticed something new.

There is now a BUY button along with a shopping cart alongside the OnePlus One. There is also a how to buy link where they detail how to buy one. It seems that they are sticking to their invite only system unfortunately.

To obtain an invite you can either ask someone who has a OnePlus One to give you an invite- “Anyone who purchases a OnePlus One will receive invites to give out to friends and family”- or you can participate in contests via the OnePlus forums or the OnePlus social media channels.

There is also a small sentence mentioning contests run by OnePlus “partners and friends” as an option to snaffle an invite. This last sentence opens up the possibility for third parties to also run competitions. Who exactly I am not sure of but maybe we could do something here at Ausdroid should we manage to get a few invites. Anyone interested?

How the Invites Work

The invite will arrive via email and inside the email will be a link to purchase the phone. Once you have clicked on the link you need to sign up or log in whereupon you claim your invite. Sounds simple. Unfortunately not.

From here, within 24 hours the invite will appear in your OnePlus account and then you once again need to follow a link, this time on the invite. One last step left, finally, is to click the “Buy Now” button. You can also add accessories to your purchase which is nice as many manufacturers do not have accessories ready at launch. What these accessories are is unknown but one would hope they will be the style swap covers (the interchangeable back covers) and personally I would love a tempered glass screen protector.

I know what you are thinking, but at this stage there doesn’t seem to be any way to get it without an invite. Clicking on the 16GB Buy button gives you a popup stating “you don’t have the required invite” (ie. it is available if you DO have an invite) and clicking on the 64GB buy button gives a “this product is out of stock error”.

Once you have completed the above steps with your invite email you can pay for it all with PayPal and your OnePlus will be winging its way to your mail forwarder or your friend/family overseas to pass it on to you here in Australia.

You are now a proud owner of a OnePlus One (plus some much sought-after invites). Congratulations.