OnePlus 2 and OnePlus X available sans invitation during Black Friday weekend sale (updated)

OnePlus, the boutique Chinese smartphone maker, has announced (via XDA-Developers) that its 2015 flagship OnePlus 2 will be available for purchase over the Black Friday weekend without the need to present one of its difficult-to-procure invitations. The sale, as it were, will be held Friday, November 27 through so-called Cyber Monday, November 30.

OnePlus, an offshoot of established manufacturer OPPO, has been overwhelmingly successful at building up buzz for its annual “flagship killers“: handsets with nearly top-of-the-line components and features that are sold for a fraction of the cost of traditional high-end fare. One of the ways that the company is able to keep its costs down is by stocking very little inventory; handsets are essentially made to order when an invitation is presented.

While reducing inventory costs is crucial for maintaining the slim margins enjoyed by the company and consumers alike, the downside is that for the majority of the year, it’s nearly impossible to simply purchase a OnePlus device on a whim. These open sales windows, like the forthcoming Black Friday promotion, began happening with some regularity as its first model, the OnePlus One, grew more mature. (That phone has now been placed in a permanent open sales window.)

As a reminder, the $329 OnePlus 2 is a 5.5-inch, Full HD handset featuring a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor, 3GB/16GB of RAM/storage, a fingerprint sensor, and a 13-megapixel main camera. For an additional $60, the specs can be bumped somewhat, with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage capacity also available.

An even more cost-conscious model, the OnePlus X, was recently introduced, starting at just $249. However, like the 2, the X is normally only available with an invite, and there’s no indication that it will be sold without one during the Black Friday weekend.

Update: Scratch that final line; the OnePlus X is indeed available for purchase without an invite, as well, although one of its two available colors (ceramic) has already sold out. This is the link you want: OnePlus Presents Black Friday: Unlimited.