Importing a Nexus One – My experiences

July 5, 2010 Chilling_Silence How-To's / Guides / Tech info

Edit: The best phone in the world is now available direct from Vodafone NZ! This won’t help if you’re importing to use it with Telecom (XT), but if you are, then you can get it directly here: http://tinyurl.com/n1vodanz

So I’ve recently imported a Nexus One. I live in New Zealand, and it’s not “officially” available here.

The Nexus One works both on XT and Vodafone, and at USD$529 including free shipping (In the states) you should be able to land it for around NZD$900 (Roughly, depending on exchange rates etc).

Here’s a few thoughts on importing it, using a mail-forwarder, avoiding unneeded taxes, getting it here ASAP and selecting the right phone for your network.

To start with, head on over to here:

http://www.google.com/phone?gl=us

If you try the usual google.com/phone link then it’ll tell you it’s not available in your country.

Hit “Get your phone” and it’ll take you to the selection screen where you can choose your Network.

Rule of thumb:

• If you’re on XT, then select AT&T
• If you’re with Vodafone, then select T-Mobile
• If you’re with another provider, then port your number to Telecom’s XT network!

I’m unsure about 2degrees or TelstraClear to be honest, but 9/10 people are on Vodafone / Telecom XT.

I personally love the Desktop & Car Dock. The Desktop dock is great for the music / nightstand, and to be honest I should have purchased a second – One for the nightstand as an alarm / clock, and one for the living room to stream music.

Once you’re done there, engraving can be added. Apparently it doesn’t delay shipping of the phone by much more than a few hours. I wanted mine ASAP so I skipped that step.

After that, Google will get you to login with your Google Account again. You should already have one, but if not, then now’s your chance to sign up for a Google Account. You can specify your true NZ details, as I have, it doesn’t matter.

It’ll tell you that they can’t ship to your address, so you’re going to have to use a forwarder such as shipito.com.

My Google shipping address looks like this:
Firstname Lastname
2964 Columbia St. Suite # 23056
Torrance CA 90503
United States
310-212-7134

The only problem is that I then incurred California Sales Tax of USD$61.33. I found out afterwards that if you forward to somewhere in Oregon then you can avoid that sales tax altogether! You can try the like of:

http://www.homebaseoregon.com

Apparently they’re good.

So basically what I had to do with shipito.com was deposit USD$9 into my account as a “forwarding fee”. They gave me the “Suite #”, which is basically just their way of matching up your package with you, so pay attention to it.

Google shipped to Shipito, Shipito received it and within 12 hours notified me with how much it was going to cost to forward it on to me. They gave me a few options from USD$46 (I think?) to USD$56. I chose the fastest / most expensive option.

It’s also worth noting that if you poke around a little on the shipito website you can change one of the options and get free Insurance on your package with FedEx, which I selected:

Shipito then sent me an email with this to show it was on its way: http://www.fedex.com/Tracking?action=track&tracknumbers=793638429235

It shows how long it took from the time it left them to the time it reached me. Keep in mind that each timestamp is in the local timezone, so it realistically got here incredibly quickly!

I rang FedEx here in NZ and asked them to hold the package at the airport so I could pick it up and ensure I got it on the Friday. When it arrived on Friday AM it took Customs around 12 hours to clear it. Believe me it seems like FOREVER when you’re refreshing the page every 30 seconds. I then went in and payed the GST on the purchase.

Apparently you can avoid GST if you can get your mail forwarder to unpack it and take it out of its original box, then because it’s not “new” you avoid GST. To be honest I’d probably do that in future rather than paying $110-odd in GST.

Hopefully this quick How-To / Recap has helped you if you decide to import the Nexus One. I can’t recommend the phone enough, and strongly suggest that you upgrade it to Android-2.2 (Froyo) as soon as possible. I hope to have a “How-To” on this of my own for brand new devices shortly.

Google, GST, Importing, Mail forwarding, Nexus One,