OnePlus One Now Available Without Invite

About this time last year, OnePlus announced the One, its first (and at that point, only) Android handset that had really great specs and a super affordable price tag. The catch, of course, was that you could only buy one via invite. Fortunately, the company announced Monday that anyone can buy a One if they so choose, invites be damned! Of course, invites will be back for the follow-up, the OnePlus 2…

According its blog post, OnePlus is making the One available without an invite from now until the end of time, all in celebration of the One’s one-year anniversary:

“In our first big celebration of the One’s successful year, we are opening up sales globally for everyone, every day of the week. We have always wanted to put great products into the hands of more people. And, we now feel confident that we have matured enough to handle the increased complexity that comes along with opening up sales completely.”

That’s great! Only, you know, the OnePlus One still costs the exact same amount that it did a year ago: $300 for 16GB of storage and $350 for 64GB. It’s still a great deal, but paying full price for year-old hardware is a pretty bitter pill to swallow.

Also problematic: the OnePlus 2, which will be available next quarter, will also be invite-only. I suppose it seems that OnePlus really likes the invite-only system, and it stands to reason that it’s doing well enough in terms of business to keep things humming along smoothly. But it’s annoying that the post would make such a big deal about freeing the One from the shackles of invites while turning around and mentioning invites being necessary for the OnePlus 2.

As for the OnePlus 2’s specs, the company hasn’t said a word. We also don’t know what operating system it’ll run. When OnePlus split up with Cyanogen last year, it developed its own flavor of Android, the OxygenOS. Chances seem good that it’ll be the one and only choice available on the new flagship, but until OnePlus makes an announcement to make it official, all we can do is speculate.

[Open Sales for the OnePlus One, Forever]