To try and put its questionable marketing history in the past, OnePlus kicked off an eBay Giving Works auction for the OnePlus 2 back in August. With the $250 OnePlus X now available and the company’s second birthday coming up, OnePlus saw fit to return to the charitable auction block with the ceramic version of its budget smartphone.
Because of its already limited availability, OnePlus will only put five of its OnePlus X Ceramic smartphones on eBay Giving Works. All of the money gained from the auctions will go to the charity Water, a non-profit organization that tasks itself with introducing clean and safe water to over 663 million people who don’t have as much access to it as others do. The organization finds solutions to issues with wells, filters, rainwater catchments, health education, and more.
The OnePlus X is already an impressive smartphone on its own, equipped with a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801, 3GB of RAM, and a 5-inch, 1,920 x 1,080 AMOLED screen. What sets the Ceramic version apart is OnePlus’ use of ceramic for the rear panel, which is made over a period of 25 days. It must be baked, crafted, and polished to make the scratchproof and rather stunning finished body.
Impressive smartphone aside, OnePlus has seemingly turned over a new leaf compared to previous promotions, which included having people make a video of them smashing their phones in the hopes of getting a OnePlus One. What really set off quite a bit of controversy for OnePlus, however, was last year’s cancelled promotion that had women draw the OnePlus logo on their bodies in an effort to have the “most-liked” image, thus netting them a free OnePlus One. Unsurprisingly, both promotions were heavily scrutinized, which didn’t help OnePlus’ public image in the slightest.
If you’re ready to let bygones be bygones, however, the auctions, which will go for another four days from today, initially started at $0.99. However, you might need to widen your wallet quite a bit, as all of the five auctions currently go for at least $835. Auction winners will get the OnePlus X Ceramic, as well as a physical OnePlus X Ceramic invite to share. The overall highest bidder will be given “a very special surprise,” though OnePlus didn’t specify what that surprise is.
