Invites to buy the OnePlus 2 have become highly sought after, what with about three million people already having registered to get their hands on one, since the system went live last week. However, if you are considering getting yourself the second generation flagship from the Hong Kong-based startup and happen to be in and around Pairs next week, August 11th might just be your lucky day. That’s because in a huge break with tradition from the online-only retail strategy that OnePlus has thus far strictly adhered to, boutique French retailer Collette will be selling a “very limited” number of the smartphones at its outlet in the French capital this Tuesday, from 11 in the morning. The best part is that would-be buyers won’t need an invite to get their hands on the much-coveted device.
Announcing the company’s decision on its official blog, OnePlus explained their decision by saying, “We’re always looking for new ways to bring the OnePlus 2 to as many of our fans as possible. So, we’re trying something we’ve never done before: for a very limited time, fans can come to Colette Paris to purchase the OnePlus 2! Design has always been important to us – it’s one of the reasons OnePlus was founded, to create beautifully crafted devices. That’s why Colette, with a reputation made from their idiosyncratic shop windows and impeccable fashion curation, felt like the perfect temporary home for the OnePlus 2. We’ll be there from 11:00 am until the OnePlus 2 is sold out. It’s a very limited stock sale, so be sure to come early!”
For the uninitiated, the OnePlus 2 is the second generation flagship smartphone from the Hong Kong-based startup OnePlus, and comes with premium hardware for a pocket-friendly price. The smartphone features a 5.5-inch 1080p screen, and is powered by Qualcomm’s MSM8994 Snapdragon 810 SoC (v2.1), which comes with an embedded octa-core 64-bit CPU clocked at a maximum of 1.8 GHz, along with an Adreno 430 GPU. The device comes with a choice of either 3 GB RAM + 16 GB ROM or 4 GB RAM + 64 GB ROM, and runs the company’s proprietary Oxygen OS 2.0, which is based on Android 5.1 Lollipop. The smartphone comes with a 13-megapixel primary camera and a 5-megapixel secondary camera, and carries a 3,300 mAh Li-Po battery. The smartphone also happens to be one of the first mainstream smartphones to support microUSB 2.0 Type-C connectivity.