It's approaching midnight when the last customer finally scurries out of the door and into the crisp London night. The shop doesn't normally keep such late hours, but tonight is a special occasion.

The customer stands in the dim light outside of the storefront, giddily looking through the contents of his shopping bag, but it doesn't contain a new suit or any other tailored piece of menswear that would typically be sold during the bespoke tailor’s business hours.

It's a smartphone.

Some arrived 13 hours in advance, to be joined later by hundreds of people anxiously awaiting the store opening at 3pm.
Like hundreds of eager Londoners before him, he had to brave a massive crowd that lined several blocks on Brushfield Street since the early hours of the morning in order to get it. Some arrived 13 hours in advance, to be joined later by hundreds of people who anxiously awaited the store opening at 3pm.

Just hours before, the scene looked the same outside of Colette on Rue Saint Honoré in Paris — before that, outside of Firmament on Mitte, Linienstraße in Berlin.

And as the doors of Joshua Kane locked in London, a line started to form outside of Magnum Soho in New York City.

Over the next few days, thousands of fans flocked to the bustling streets of Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore as the anticipation and excitement spilled over to India. Each location had been transformed, for a mere handful of hours, to accommodate the most anticipated smartphone release of the year.

But this phone — the one that compelled fans across the world to travel up to hundreds of miles to eagerly wait for hours on sidewalks — might not be the one you have in mind.

The phone you'll be willing to wait for
On June 14th, OnePlus launched its newest flagship device, the OnePlus 3. The following day, the phone was made available at a series of pop-up stores across the world. Now, for any casual smartphone user, it would be enough to sit back, order the phone online and patiently wait for the new device to arrive at their doorstep days later.

But for the OnePlus community, waiting isn't in the cards.

Eager to scoop up the phone at the first opportunity, rabid technophiles flooded the streets outside each pop-up location in New York, London, Paris and Berlin.

Thousands showed up for the phone's debut, and each store stayed open longer than anticipated in order to meet the demand.

While they were waiting, some OnePlus fans shared why they were so excited for the new phone, and why they keep coming back to the growing tech player.