A place to share my often random thoughts on technology
Archive for March, 2010
[Updated] How To Order a Google Nexus One To Almost Any Country
Mar 26th
Here at the steps I used to order a Google Nexus one to Ireland but this should work for any country*
- Sign up to a site such as http://www.myUSAbox.com which allows you to ship the phone to a New York address. They will then forward your package on to you when it arrives.
- Sign up to hotspot shield. To order a Nexus One you need a UK or US IP address, hotspot shield allows you to get one. You can uninstall hotspot shield once your order is completed.
- Using hotspot shield you will now be able to order the Nexus One from http://google.com/phone.
- The address to deliver the phone is your myUSAbox address while your credit card billing address is the account registered to your credit card.
- You can advise myUSAbox.com of your incoming package and also add instructions for them to repackage the phone for you or hold the package until you are ready to send it. Please be aware of extra taxes and charges e.g. For items over $150 of value being imported into Ireland.
- Await the arrival of your Google Nexus One!
My total order from Google was $624.94 as I also purchased the desktop charging dock for Nexus One, which I highly recommend as it’s a Bluetooth dock which allows you to stream music from the phone to a sound system and also includes a second charger. Your phone will arrive with a worldwide voltage charger but with the US plug save yourself some money and just get an adapter US to UK or EU plug.
| 1 | Nexus One phone | USD529.00 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Nexus One Desktop Dock | USD45.00 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Shipping - FedEx overnight | USD0.00 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tax (NY) : | USD50.94 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Total: | USD624.94 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The fee was myUSbox to ship the phone to Ireland was $58 and when the phone arrived, there was a €40 important customs charge as the item was sent as a gift. The complete total was ~ $735 or €550. Expensive but well worth it!
*There may be other customs and tax charges that are different for your country, please be sure you check these as it may greatly increase the import cost of the phone.
Update: The Nexus One is no longer available direct from Google, it may still be available from a carrier in your country.
Palm Pre Update
Mar 9th
I’ve been meaning to update this site for ages but have been caught up on other stuff. Here’s the latest (or oldest at this stage) But after 2 Palm Pre’s and 2 touchstone chargers I’ve ended quest to become part of the Palm universe. Both Pre’s showed the same issue of the buzzing when using 2G service. From reading different forums I’ve come to the conclusion that this affects all Palm Pre’s out there.
A few days after I posted my conversation with a Palm Rep I received a friendly call from Palm who stated they were wrong and they have now had more users reporting the buzzing issue. So fair play to Palm for personally calling me and updating me. However they didn’t have a solution for the fix and couldn’t give me any more information so I decided the return the phone for the second and last time.
Regarding the touchstone charger while charging the base was making a high pitched noise (also a widely reported issue) and when the phone was charging a buzzing noise could be heard which I tracked down to a lose connection on the back charger cover (also widely reported issue).
To sum up my experience with the Pre, GREAT software TERRIBLE hardware with no QA done at all. Since O2 Ireland has withdrawn the Pre from sale although it is still available on bill pay. There have been reports of terrible sales figures for the Pre personally I hope Palm make it as WebOS really could be something great!