The phone was first made available for sale on 25 April 2014, exclusively from the OnePlus website, but initially required prospective customers to obtain an invitation before they could purchase it.

The company's main goal was to design his "dream" smartphone; one that would balance the quality of high-end devices from its major competitors with a lower price than other phones in its class.

He argued that, despite their lower cost, users would "never settle" for the lower-quality devices produced by other Chinese companies, and similar startups such as Blu and Yota.

[9][10] Lau compared the ideals of OnePlus with those of the Japanese company Muji, with a focus on high quality products with simplistic designs.

Co-founder Carl Pei explained that "by rigorously testing and improving our logistical structure over the last one year, we are far more confident that our processes have matured enough for us to handle the increased production and after-sales support that comes along with opening up sales.

The promotion was met with controversy, as others felt that the contest promoted the objectification of women: some users posted entries that consisted of existing photos of women with OnePlus logos edited onto them, while another posted a picture of herself performing middle finger gestures, accompanied by a comment denouncing the contest as sexist.

[19] In response to the criticism, the contest was pulled only hours after it was announced: the company stated that "we want to encourage even more women to get involved with and excited about the amazing things happening in tech right now.

The 'Ladies First' contest was a very misguided effort by a few isolated employees to do just that, however there is no question the post not only failed to better include our female community but actually perpetuated a stereotype that OnePlus in no way supports or condones.

[20] In December 2014, the One was released in India exclusively through Amazon; invites were still necessary to purchase the device outside special promotions, which have been held occasionally since its launch.

[28] The device's internal hardware includes a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 system-on-chip clocked at 2.5 GHz, 3 GB of RAM, and a 5.5-inch, JDI 1080p IPS LCD display.

[9] Alongside additional features added to the Android platform through Cyanogen (including wider customization options, an audio equalizer, encrypted messaging, and application privacy controls), the 11S software adds persistent voice commands, and gestures that can be performed while the phone is in standby to perform various functions, such as double-tapping the screen to turn it on, drawing a circle to go to the camera, and drawing a "V" to activate flashlight mode.

Tests found that the One usually performed as well as or even better despite being half the price of its rivals, not only due to its specs but also attributed to its largely bloatware-free CyanogenMod OS.

The similarly-priced Nexus 5 was more widely available and had more guaranteed updates from Google, however it suffered from some design compromises including mediocre battery life and camera quality to keep the price low, plus its internal hardware was aging.

In terms of specifications and size, the OnePlus One could be compared to the much pricier 5.5-inch LG G3 whose screen was higher resolution but inferior quality.

[3][4][5] The OnePlus One's original distribution via an invite-only order system made the device difficult to acquire, so some reviewers decided against recommending it.