back to article Smartphone boutique OnePlus reveals another model you can’t get

So long as Shenzhen smartphone upstart OnePlus insists on rationing the distribution of its products, it’s going to remain a boutique player. Quite literally. As OnePlus announced its third phone in London today, it added that it would create a pop-up in the Colette boutique concept store in Paris. Where better to show off …

  1. TonyJ

    But..

    Do they work across all UK 4G frequencies yet?

    Could go and look I guess but I'm feeling lazy. :)

    1. Liam McClean

      Here's the list of frequencies

      GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900MHz; WCDMA (EU): bands 1/2/5/8; LTE bands: 1/2/4/5/8/38/40; WCDMA (US): bands 1/3/5/7/8/20; FDD-LTE: bands 1/2/4/5/7/8

  2. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge
    Coat

    Ceramic?

    May thy smartphone chip and shatter

    Off to the local watering hole... Arrakis sure is dry!

  3. Dan Paul

    At least you can....

    sharpen all your cutlery with the ceramic backed phone. Until you drop it anyway. Have to ask Corning Glass if they ever thought that there could be a use for Corelle ware material for cell phones. Bet they can make it in black or white in a whole lot less time than 25 days.

  4. AndyS

    This reminds me of why 35mm SLR sensors are so expensive. It's not that they're big, but that the rejection rate is so high.

    Of course, 35mm SLR sensors for digital camera have to be made of silicon. Selecting such a difficult manufacturing process when there's a simpler one available? Well I guess if they can still make a profit...

  5. mythicalduck

    The X is actually a £199, five-inch compact with decent specs

    5 inches is not compact...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      That's what he said

  6. Tom 38

    No NFC

    No replaceable battery

    No invites

    No thanks

  7. tiggity Silver badge

    Stock android

    Is the missing thing I need, as stock is a good way to guarantee rapid bug fixes (rather than be at the mercy of phone maker potentially tardy updates ).

    The big drawback of the Nexus range is no SD card (& so eye watering price for a decent amount of storage), and there is a gap in the market for affordable phone with SD storage (e.g.some of us like to have music to listen to on SD, streaming cloud services are no use in reception blackspots e.g travel on train).

    Stock also means there is less unwanted crud on the phone so more space!

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: Stock android

      How about a Wiley Fox, the Storm is just about to be launched?. Not stock but official CM so it should get the updates.

      1. VinceH

        Re: Stock android

        "How about a Wiley Fox, the Storm is just about to be launched?"

        That's what I thought, too - but I've just spotted an email from them with the subject "Wileyfox Storm Sold Out" *

        Where the hell was the email to say it was now available - which was the reason I signed up to their list in the first place!

        However, reading it, it says the first batch sold out from Amazon, Clove and Ebuyer, but that Argos and Expansys still have some. I've now ordered one - Argos had no stock, and Expansys had 22; that was ten or so minutes ago.

        * Or this could be a clever marketing ploy and I've been duped - but I wanted one anyway.

        1. David Paul Morgan

          Re: Stock android

          SWIFT in stock. STORM more stock 4 days...

    2. dotdavid

      Re: Stock android

      OnePlus' handsets look pretty close to stock but unfortunately aren't.

      After a public falling-out with Cyanogen Inc they created their own OxygenOS fork of CM (I think) with poached key members of the Paranoid Android custom ROM dev team. It's pretty close to AOSP so in theory shouldn't be too hard to update, but most custom Android distros take quite a few months to rebase on new AOSP releases and I can't imagine OxygenOS would be any different.

  8. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    Heh...

    china phone...

    1. D@v3

      Re: T'pau phone?

      (china in your hand)

  9. psychonaut

    you see, i might well be interested in buying one of these. but if i cant be sure i caq get it now, rather than at some random time in the future when i may or may not get one, im not going to bother.

    if its this difficult to buy....is it difficult to get it fixed by them if it goes wrong??

    1. Cookiesworld

      I had a one plus one, and had to deal with the customer support, when the charger failed. It was so laughably bad I understood why the phone is so cheap.

    2. psychonaut

      oh. no removable battery? EHHH - UUHHH. next

      1. psychonaut

        Thumbs down there from people who dont kill a battery in 12 months. Fanbois by any chance??

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yes it is difficult, in fact there are plenty of stories around the net regarding the customer & support services of the OnePlus company, many are not glowing references.

      For balance it should be said that if you can get them to take notice of a bad experience they do usually try to get you a good outcome, but then all customers should be entitled to that regardless of how much noise they made on 'social media'

  10. Your alien overlord - fear me

    five-inch compact with decent specs. For £199 yes.

  11. DrXym

    The dangers of glass phone

    I used to use a Nexus 4 which had a glass back. When I put it on a surface it had the alarming habit of riding on a cushion of air and gliding gracefully straight off the nearest edge. Apparently LG fixed this issue by putting some dimples on the back to stop it but it came too late for my revision.

    It's not clear this OnePlus X has any dimples so maybe it suffers the same issue. My current phone is a OnePlus One which has a somewhat weird felt-like surface on the back but it makes the phone stay put which is the main thing. I think the OnePlus X looks like a very nice phone though preferably without any suicidal tendencies.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You can fiddle their invite system.

    I jumped approx. 10 thousand places in the queue for a OnePlus Two by using the old dot-in-gmail-addy trick.

    Never heard of it?

    Well, say you're johnsmith@gmail

    Google have a forwarding or similar, whereby john.smith@gmail is actually the same account - meaning, if you invite that address, the confirmation email goes to johnsmith@gmail

    You can also use multiple dots (2 the limit I think) and dashes.

    So I can invite j.ohnsm.ith@gmail or johnsm.i.th@gmail and I still get the confirmation and jump up the queue a bit as I've gamed the referral system.

    There are other uses for this, like Spotify premium trial, but if the invite system puts you off, just do this.

    And make sure to send any future notifications to spam, once you have the product :)

    This is Gmail's choice, so nothing Oneplus or anyone else can do much to address.

    So yes, the invite system is naff, but it's easy enough to game.

  13. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  14. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    On to something

    These ceramic cases could be a big deal if OPO/OPPO can work out the manufacturing issues. Aluminum needs to be sliced up to pass RF, glass can't handle impacts, and reinforced plastics flex too much. Too there aren't enough LTE bands on that phone.

  15. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Trollface

    Ceramic?

    Isn't the stuff that flowerpots are made from?

    1. captain veg Silver badge

      Re: Ceramic?

      Yes. And the hideously expensive brake disks on some exotica.

      -A.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I can just see myself using one of these while eating a £5 bowl of cereal, drinking a cocktail out of a jam jar in Shoreditch. Pop-ups? Nothing new - they used to be called squatter shops 25 years ago, but then they sold you flammable shell suits and dolls held together with an enormous spike.

  17. Vlad The Impatient

    Invites?

    Got one in less than 24h. Not so difficult to get - if you try.

    1. Pen-y-gors

      Re: Invites?

      As a very happy OnePlus One owner, I got an invite to buy a OnePlus Two today, valid for a week. Don't know why I'd want one, as the One is still working perfectly well. Wouldn't they do better to target potential new customers?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    studied in marketing classes

    as a classical example of "fluff over substance", I suppose.

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