OnePlus CEO Pete Lau says the OnePlus 5 will be easy to buy

Early this morning, we told you that Chinese on-line retailer JD.com had received over 75,000 registrations for the first OnePlus 5 flash sale set to take place on June 22nd. Of course, since it is a flash sale, we won't know how many units will be sold sold until afterward. Meanwhile, OnePlus co-founder and CEO Pete Lau posted a message on his Weibo account that the OnePlus 5 is going to be easy to buy. The since-deleted post was a response to a comment posted by another Weibo user who wrote that the OnePlus 5 will be hard to find after the device is released next week. Historically, new OnePlus handsets have been hard to find right after their launch.

In addition, Lau's remark could also be seen as a response to a rumor (since debunked) that OnePlus was about to bring back the controversial invitation system that requires a OnePlus purchaser to be invited to buy a phone. OnePlus used the system as a way to match up supply with demand. As a new company when it released the OnePlus One in 2014, it couldn't afford to spend the money to build handsets on spec.

In addition, there is talk that the OnePlus 5 will be priced higher than its previous releases. This way, the company can take advantage of the strong demand for the new phone. One version with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of native storage could be priced in the $500 area. A premium variant with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of native storage could fetch close to $600. That is 25% more than the $479 that the high-end version of the OnePlus 3T was going for when it was launched in November.


source: PeteLau (via Weibo) via  AndroidHeadlines