This is apparently the confusion that some new OnePlus One owners are experiencing, so much so that OnePlus’ CEO Carl Pei had to take to Twitter to explain the situation. As it turns out, OnePlus was actually nice and generous enough to apply a free screen protector on their newer shipments for their customers.
Pei also clarified that these are not refurbished units, but rather the screen protectors were applied to prevent shattering, possibly during the transportation process, which we suppose saves time and money against shipping them back and getting it fixed. “We recently applied a screen protector to new OnePlus Ones we make to protect against shatters. FYI, they are not refurbished.”
Now it should be noted that the OnePlus One comes with Gorilla Glass but as Pei writes in response to a user, “Gorilla Glass is great against scratches, notoriously bad against drops.” In any case it’s a free screen protector and they’ve just saved you the trouble of applying it yourself and potentially getting bubbles under it in the process, so why not, right?