Dear Santa ...
Thanks for the socks and all that, but my G1 is nearly 18 months old now and I was thinking about getting a Nexus One.
The first problem was that trying to go through the order process using FireFox doesn't seem to work.
Every path after the 'Continue' button results in:
I had assumed that the system was busy, but the problem lasted a long time, so I tried with IE, and hey presto it works.
The next 'problem' is that the phone is sold via the US, and as Google are right to point out, that means the sale incurs an import duty when it comes into the UK.
Rather than stumping up the $529 (~=£330) our American friends pay for the phone, delivery included, I was now looking at...
$529 for the phone
+ $19.99 for a UK charger
+ $29.65 shipping
with UK Sales Tax on the total at 17.5% and a 6.5% import duty on all that, which makes it ~$725 (i.e. ~=£453). Ouch.
For the difference I can almost fly to the US and pick it up myself!
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4 comments:
Don't be so sorry and ask one of your friends to bring it from US. If you will not be there first :)
Anyway it's announced to be available in UK. But there is no announces about availability in Russia :(
So looks like "ask a friend" is the only option for us :)
Hi Alexey,
Yeah, I thought of that already. Just need to find a trustworthy traveler!
Of course, the same technique is true for Russia or anywhere else, and it sounds like the phone is capable enough to use on most local networks.
Don't forget the additional £15 "handling fee" that Parcelforce will charge for the privilege of collecting the VAT and duty!
However if you were to pick it up in the US, you would still have to pay the VAT and duty at Heathrow. Unless you stuffed it in the bottom of a bag and marched straight through the Green Channel... but you'd never do that, of *course* ;-)
Hi Neil,
Erm, yes, of course I'd be paying all those things to the nice folk at Heathrow, I forgot.
My memory isn't what it used to be. It can fail me at the most unexpected moment.
Let's hope that doesn't happen at Heathrow after a long tiring flight ;-)
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