The OnePlus One smartphone is coming, but you’ll need an invitation to buy it (Updated)

For a company which only made itself public in December last year, OnePlus is proving itself to be an exciting new addition to the smartphone world. After several months of teasing, it has confirmed we'll see its first smartphone on April 23. "We're almost ready to showcase our baby to the world," a moderator wrote on the OnePlus forum, before thanking everyone's patience, and promising it'll be worth the wait.

OnePlus is a company with ambition. Started by former Oppo Vice President Pete Lau, it aims to build the best smartphone the world has seen. Since its inception, OnePlus has been using its social networking channels to gather comments and opinions, ensuring the product it launches is close to what the firm's potential future users want.

Updated on 04-18-2014 by Andy: We've now been given a complete list of where the OnePlus One phone will be released, plus some information on an invitation-style pre-order system. 

Where will the phone be released?

OnePlus will sell its first phone to customers in America, the UK, Canada, and the following other countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Taiwan. An exact release date hasn't been confirmed yet.

What's this invitation system all about?

OnePlus calls it a "user friendly way of buying the device," and it has been designed to avoid the pitfalls that come with traditional pre-orders, such as difficulty in securing a device, and long wait times. OnePlus will distribute invitations to buy the phone through its busy forum, contests, and through friends. It's no specified how the latter will work. Once you have an invite, it's 100 percent certain you'll be able to buy the device. However, the invitations are in limited supply, so there's no guarantee you'll get an invite in the first place. We suspect it'll help the company with production, but it could leave many customers frustrated.

More information on the system will be shared on the day of launch.

How about the phone's specification and price?

We don't have to wait for the specification though, as it has almost entirely been revealed already. The phone will have a large 5.5-inch touchscreen made by Japan Display, but the device's overall dimensions will remain very compact. OnePlus even published a picture of the phone underneath a 5-inch Sony Xperia Z1, which completely obscured the OnePlus One. The screen will have a 1080p resolution. 

A partnership with Qualcomm was rumored back in January, and sure enough, a brand new Snapdragon 801 processor will power the phone, just like the new Xperia Z2 and the Galaxy S5. It'll be backed up by 3GB of RAM, and a 3100mAh battery will be inside the device. Lau says the decision to make it non-removable means it can have a higher capacity, while keeping the device suitably slim. OnePlus' phone will run Android, but it'll be a custom version of CyanogenMod.

The final spec released concerns the camera, which will be a 13-megapixel, six-element Sony Exmor IMX214. Image stabilization will be standard, along with 4K video recording, and slow-motion recording at 720p. A 5-megapixel front camera will be fitted above the screen. OnePlus has been thinking about design too, and will offer five different rear covers for the One phone, each made to enhance the look, durability, and feel of the device. The styles announced are silk, sandstone, denim, bamboo, and Kevlar. The latter three are all made from their respective materials.

OnePlus has promised the phone will cost less than $400, or 350 euros, when it goes on sale. All we need now is a look at the phone itself, which will come on April 23, but if anything else is revealed before then, we'll update here.

Article first published on 03-25-2014
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