I hope not (or that they release a large and small version). I like large screens.

 

Setting aside the horrid invite experience and problems that bricked my OPO, my complaints lie with how the company emulates Apples arrogant self centered behavior. The other major complaint is how initially they bragged about creating a 5" sized phone with a 5.5" display, only to be revealed it was larger than a Note 3, but had a smaller display, resulting in huge bezels top & bottom like an iPhone.

Yet I bought one anyway, mainly out of curiosity as price didn't factor in my decision. Saving money is nice, but it ended up being obscenely expensive for me. I spent so many hours trying to get service and warranty repairs, it's simply disgusting. In the end it turned out to be the most expensive brick I've ever owned. If it was a U.S. corporation I would have taken very aggressive legal action.

 

The bezels aren't huge but could have been smaller maybe. I still am happy with mine, it's worked out to be a great device for the price.

 

So do I. It's too bad OnePlus didn't have a more efficient CS dept.

 

Smaller= I'm not buying.

Also with their lack of CS and response time to issues, I'm going to probably sit out and stay with the Nexus 6.

 

the nexus 6 will obviously be out before next october where we'll start hearing rumors of the nexus....11?

CS is due to them being new to the game and not having these things in place yet.

they need to make good on their promise of a "5.5" screen in a 5" phone" with the 1+2. LG did with the G3, they can do it too.

 

Yeah, but that excuse is getting old and stale. It was fine 2-3 months ago, but they're over 100K+ in devices internationally now. Customer service is extremely important and OP has failed hard in this category.

When I buy a product, I shouldn't have to wait a week + for a response from them. Now don't get me wrong I'm not expecting immediate service either, but 48-72 hours is what I'd consider reasonable timeframe to return a customers inquiry.

If they're going to put out a OP 2, they need to heavily beef up CS by that time. Next time people won't give them a pass for being "new".

 

You're probably right about that. You just reminded me I'm expecting the cases! I forgot. I guess I'll check the mail tomorrow.

 

I agree with that!

 

oneplus got caught with their pants down big time. they didn't expect this type of demand for their product at all and have been scrambling like madmen to catch up.

why they didnt think people would be interested in a flagship caliber phone for a midrange price...go figure.

 

Big time!!! If rumors are to be believed, they're going to do the same invite crap for OP II. I'm sure there are plenty of people in China looking for work. It shouldn't be too difficult to hire customer service reps. They now know the demand is there. This far out of the gate they're still making pretty big errors.

Customer service is paramount next to the user experience. You have issues of them not honoring their warranty or making users pay for shipping defective products back to them. While many give them a pass for being "new" I don't. Now, I gave them some rope because they were "new" and its expected that their will be issues. Also, let's not forget OPPO is their main investor and frankly the whole relationship stinks.

 

Thanks for the well wishes.

I have never tried so hard to like a company, or try to work with them like I have OnePlus. Details aside it was a lose/lose experience for all involved.

I truly enjoy being a happy positive advocate for those who do the next right thing. Meaning I live in the present, I'm patient, a businessman I understand delays, backorder, mistakes etc. I do not want someone to blame I want someone to work with in solving the problem and moving on. I'm not a complainer or a victim.

After literally months of struggle in every aspect, obtaining an invite, placing an order, dealing with not one but two bad, really bad phones, OP caused me to do the one thing I_never_do... I quit!

Such a shame, despite my first phone being what I assessed as a one off dud, I came out of pocket and bought another so as to have a fresh start. They could have replaced my original or given me a discount but they simply fail to understand customer service and doing the right thing.

Still believing these are well designed I created a fresh start with a brand new phone. Once the phone arrived, and I'm keeping this story extremely brief, the new phone worked very well for exactly six days before it literally overheated and burned up on the spot. (no flames but a super heated melt down to rubble).

By then I was done, I decided to cut my massive losses both monetarily and emotionally... this was such a daunting situation that needed to end. In fact this is the first time and last, that I've spoken about it since.

If it wasn't such a good phone for those that got lucky I never would have been so patient. But live and learn, and that I have

 

by "new", i mean they don't have the resources and money to operate on the level of the big players. are there enough people in china willing to work for free or low pay?

oneplus is not refusing to honor any warranties. they're just taking longer than other companies for turnaround and most are just giving up on the process and saying oneplus is ignoring them or people think that oneplus should just take their word for it without providing any proof of the issue. no one has to give them a pass for being new, they just have to understand that things aren't going to go as smoothly as with the big established players and decide whether they want to deal with that or not. apple and sammy had to go through this when they started. they got through it fine.

oppo is not handling oneplus' CS or logistics so yeah, i agree, the relationship stinks.

 

I'm NOT advocating working for free or low pay. I just find it hard to believe that they've struggled this much in ramping up their CS.


I don't get how they underestimated their demand so badly. A top spec'd phone at a very affordable price. Seems like a no brainier to me that demand would be pretty good. They CANNOT make the same mistakes with the OPII.

 

i think they should hold off another year and focus on improving CS and software for the ONE. they're not in position to play annual flagship game the big players are playing, at least not yet.

and they were indeed talking about having the invite system again for the TWO, though temporarily in the beginning....i don't know about that decision.

 

Absolutely they need to focus on CS, cause it is horrible. My concern with the invite system is that how many customers have they lost because of it, that went to another manufacture? Missed sales= lost money.

They really need to have a fully CS support if they expect to be successful long term. I read the stories over at OPO forums of long or no response. In this day in age some people cannot be without a phone for long periods. Also this method of emailing for support as the only method has to go to. They need a call center of some type. That would help expedite CS issues, rather than playing the email back and forth game.

 

they'll be okay with the missed sales as the lost money comes from not selling stock. they've sold every unit they've made. the real damage will come if they release the TWO and there's no demand for it. as long as they sell what they make, they'll break even.

if not a call center, they can set up live chat. i've had much success with live chat on metroPCS's website.

 

As you noted, they have an incredibly small profit margin and cannot afford to not sell phones that have been produced. This will indeed make them start with the invite system again. I do not believe the new phone will be a flagship killer but rather a small (compared to current and future phones), uniquely designed, fast phone. Their logistics is very much improved from the beginning and they will be able to ramp up production at an earlier time but with their current, stated design choice it will not have as much demand as the one. They can become an insolvent company quite easily and are using the invite system to decrease that possibility. Granted we aren't fans of the invite system but it's better than the company going belly up.

As multiple users have pointed out, their main focus should be on ramping up customer service and live chat would be a good option but I think they become affected by the time zone differentials.

 

Now that some time has passed and I've recovered from the worst experience I've ever had in tech, buying a new product and attempting to deal with the company, I'm back to share some thoughts.

As some of you may know from following my posts, I'm a huge tech enthusiast and smartphone addict. This because a smartphone was designed for people like me. A software engineer, who spends about half my time behind a computer creating and developing, the other half traveling internationally for the company.

When I'm in travel mode, a full featured flagship Android phone rooted, customized and optimized as I have mine is simply priceless.

At first glance many months ago when OnePlus was first getting started I discovered them and decided to make a point of following their progress. My enthusiasm dampened by the dubious choice to implement the invite system, I persevered nonetheless.

Once I finally obtained a phone it was defective, for the sake of keeping this post to a reasonable length I'll leave out the vast number of problems with not one, but three new OPO phones (spanning a time line of 100 days) before I finally gave up on them. It's also important to share that 16 of my fellow engineers at work also bought OPO's. Eight of those were very good examples. The remaining eight varied in the amount and nature of their issues.

I've returned to this forum because I still see potential in OnePlus and most of their business model. In my opinion, if they'd simply make a few changes in how the company is operating, they'd benefit dramatically. There's still time if they do not procrastinate.

Here's my suggestions which I've communicated to them directly:

1) Eliminate the invite system.

2) Take the needed measures to enable the company to respond to all customer service requests , not just a random few, within 48 hours. In more than a few instances I waited over 15 days before receiving a response to a serious technical issue that rendered the phone unusable.

3) Improve assembly and quality control so as to consistently deliver usable phones.

So there you have it, an up to date report from a customer that had a less than acceptable experience with OnePlus.

It will be interesting to see if they respond to my email. Simply because as a concerned enthusiast I like variety and want to see as many manufacturers succeed as possible.

 

true enough, i get why they did the invites, but they have seen that the demand is there and they missed it by 10 miles.

even in the on set i was expecting them to put out a million units initially or at least 500K. they only put out 10-20K....10-20...K? they had 100K entries for smash the past alone and then 300K entries for their first promo spam contest. they simply whiffed hard on demand calculation. they admitted it themselves in their latest reddit.

to be fair, at the time 1+ were making stock, oppo had the find 7 and 7a to produce. they didn't have capacity at that time.

if they do decide to go with invites they need to be putting them out in 100 thousands right out the gate.

 

Quite frankly, you should be playing the lottery. Although your problems have been repeated, for you to be hit with the various issues on back to back to back phones is incredibly rare (thank god). I'm sure your posts have gently rammed "caveat emptor" down the people's throats who don't bother to do enough research and then complain at a later date. For this, I and most members here thank you. I am throwing in my 2 cents on your 1st and 2nd points below. There is no way to not fully back your 3rd point.

I agree with you both to an extent. I have not seen or heard of any company investing in them since their start. This has and will continue to severely limit their ability to continue and will be the death of them. A company with low profit margins does not have the ROI to seek greater funding. As they continue to correct their initial mistakes, their available capital will rise and we have to hope they use it correctly. Investing in production, both quality and quantity, should be #1. Customer service can come in second simply because the investment between the two is extremely disparate and should have already been done.

I wonder how much more effective they could be if they started out with their products priced at $350 and $400 respectively. I believe one of you pointed it out earlier, but the leadership should have known this from the start and it seems like maybe the C-Suite was drinking too much of the Kool-Aid.

TLDR - Small profit margins for a startup tech company that involves a vast amount of production, logistics and customer support will severely hamper your start.