Smartphone maker OnePlus has announced a renewed effort to bring at least one of its smartphones more quickly to North America and Europe after the device initially sold out when it launched in November. Via the company’s forums website, a new feature has been added to allow for pre-orders for new disbursements of the OnePlus 3T. The Jan 21st announcement was made as a sort of “New Year’s resolution” for OnePlus and cites a goal to continue bringing the very best in technological advancements to customers of the company quickly. The only caveat is that it applies to a specific version of that model.
OnePlus has struggled with a low stock of devices post-launch since its very first device. While it’s true that shortages certainly aren’t limited to smaller manufacturers, anticipating high volume sales is often more important to the success of a smaller manufacturer – such as OnePlus. Although the idea behind announcement was obviously to recommit to consumers, the ability to order the latest run of the now 3-month-old OnePlus 3T was only just announced on Saturday. That may or may not hamper its intended purpose since that only gives consumers a few days to place their orders of the device. Unfortunately, it is also true that the newly featured ordering system only applies to the Gunmetal 64GB version of the device and not to the recently released Soft Gold variant. However, OnePlus promised they will begin shipping the devices again on Jan 24 and has also promised that the North American and EU regions will see the flagship device ship first.
While setting orders for a few days in advance may seem like hardly enough time for such a popular device – even for a device that is technically not new – it is a step in a better direction for both shortening a user’s wait time and for gauging future sales to offset shortages, especially after the device sold out so quickly when it first launched. If OnePlus is serious in its commitment, then it may also be likely that similar pre-orders systems will be a given on future devices from the company. In addition to this announcement, OnePlus also mentioned that this is only the first step in a process to meet the company’s stated resolution – though the other steps were not outlined and no time frame was given for when the other steps would be announced or implemented.