How to Order Google’s Nexus One Smart Phone if You Live Outside the US, UK, HK, or Singapore
As we all know, Google launched its first smart phone on January 5th, 2010. Luckily for people living in the US, UK, Hong Kong or Singapore, you can order it directly from Google from their web store. For the rest of us, we are either forced to wait for a change in their shipping policy or work our way around this. In a global Internet world, anything is possible. Here is the easy guide how to get the phone to your own doorsteps within a few days, I’m waiting for mine to arrive as I’m writing this.
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Get access to the ordering process by downloading and installing the free Hotspot Shield software (Windows & Mac only). By installing this you protect your location and IP address so that Google’s web store won’t block you out from the ordering process. When installed and activated, proceed to the next step.
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Sign up for a US based shipping address at MyUSABox.com. In practice, this is free as the US $5 they charge for registering will be credited to you when you use the service for the first time. They ship products worldwide and even repackage the boxes for an additional fee to help minimize custom declarations in your local country.
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Sign up for a Google Checkout account. If you already have a Google / Gmail account, you can add that easily through your Google account settings.Note that you can use any international shipping address and credit card for this purpose, it does not have to be the MyUSABox address you just signed up for
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Order your personal Nexus One phone phone by pointing your browser to http://www.google.com/phone. Please make sure you opt for the SIM free phone at $529 + sales tax (a NY based shipping address will add $46.95 sales tax to your order, totalling at $575.95). Also, make sure you enter the MyUSAbox shipping address and Google Account billing address to the order.
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Wait for your N1 to arrive to MyUSABox. You should get notified by email as soon as it arrives unless your e-mail spam filters are too tight.
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Log in to MyUSABox and forward your box to your home address, it should arrive within a few days.
This should be simple enough to do in 15 minutes, unfortunately you have to pay the additional shipping cost but it should be reasonable if you really want to try out the new phone from HTC and Google. For me, shipping was a fair overpriced $49 to EU (including re-packaging), giving a total price of $625 (~€435) for the whole adventure.
Hi there!
Just gone through the steps of ordering, fingers crossed!
Matt, thanks a million for posting such an amazing work-around to ordering something that should be available to everyone, everywhere!
TJ (post above about German hub), I also ordered to Germany, do you have any update?
And a last question for Mary with the successful purchase: How did you mark your box from MyUSABox to Ireland, any useful tip?
Sorry for the length & questions..
Vangelis
@Vangelis
I asked them to mark it as gift of a phone battery and dock worth US$100. It came marked as “Phone and Dock”, but I didn’t have any problems or extra payments. And the whole process only took a week.
Cheers Mary! I hope ze German Customs won’t be any more thorough than the Irish..
Ah well, I hope the phone is good at least?
Hi…
I have been trying this for a week almost, and i havent been able to place the order. Google checkout says my VISA card have been declined, but everything is fine with it (amount, international shooping address, unblocked,.. all!) the bank says it too..
What could be the problem.. ??
I have to use a myUSAbox address neccesarily?
or what?
Plz HELP!!!!!!!
Im from Dominican Republic!
Anyone else getting this message? “Oops. We encountered unexpected error processing your request. Please try again in a few minutes” When I get through to payment page & fill everything in and click continue it just stays on the same page and displays that up the top in red box
Tried yesterday too, very annoying because I’m going to NY in a week & wanted to order one and have it waiting for me
Damn thing got stuck in Frankfurt, aaaaarrrrgghhh.. Should have been delivered today which would have been a world record acquisition of a phone that is not available in Europe.. Hopefully next week now and hopefully without having to pay the VAT!!
Nice guide – thanks a lot.
Vangelis and Mary: did you both use MyUSABox for forwarding then? I haven’t found much about them on the web so I had been wondering if their service is legit.
Very fast service! Phone was there and 5 hours later it left!
Phone arrived today, no extra costs at customs (labeled as repaired return)!
MANY MANY THANKS MATT!!!!
PLease can this service help me get the phone in Nigeria and if they can,how much would it cost and how long would it take.. Please i need this phone like mad and urgently