OnePlus Announces June 14 Launch Date For New Flagship Smartphone

Rumors hit the Web this week that OnePlus would be unveiling its latest flagship in just a couple of weeks, and as it happens: it’s true. Before the rumor mill got out of hand, company co-founder Carl Pei took to the official forums to give us a couple juicy bits of information.

First and foremost, the OnePlus 3 is set to launch on June 14, 12:30PM EDT (9:30AM PDT). In case it’s not obvious, that’s a mere two weeks away. If you’re already looking forward to the launch but are cringing at the idea of another invite-only mechanism, you can relax. As Carl writes, “With the OnePlus 3, we’re officially saying goodbye to invites.”

OnePlus’ OnePlus 2

Carl goes on to say that the invite system most people loathed has a special place in the company’s history, and it’s hard to not agree. It’s been argued that the invite system that the company launched with was one of the reasons people took notice of the company so quickly, and why the hype around its offerings simply skyrocketed. When the OnePlus 2 came along, many were frothing at the mouth for one.

Given the previous successful launches, OnePlus wanted to do something a bit special for this next one. With all of the hype surrounding VR right now, the company supplied a number of simple VR kits to people that could be used to experience the event “live”. If you have your own VR solution, including Google Cardboard, you could grab the app and join in.

If there’s one thing I personally hope to see from the OnePlus with its latest flagship, it’s to not take so long getting updated Android versions rolled out to the device. Despite the fact that Android 6.0 Marshmallow came out in October, it still hasn’t been rolled out to the OnePlus 2, despite promises of a Q1 release – something that hasn’t gone unnoticed by fans.