If you are following technology news, you probably heard that Google released Nexus One phone which is actually made by HTC and is currently not available in Australia. If you live in US you can get a phone for US $529 + taxes, but they do not ship the product to Australian addresses.

After some Internet research I decided to use the following strategy to get the phone:

• Register an account with Shipito.com and pay a deposit of US $8.50 using a PayPal or credit card. After completing it you will get a US address in California where your shipments could be delivered
• Since Google knows your location from your provider IP address, it displays the message that phone can’t be purchased from Australia. You can easily overcome that by using one of free HTTP proxies located in US. You can get a list of available free proxy servers by using proxy4free.com or any other web site which publishes that list.
• Change your browser proxy settings to use US-based proxy server. If you’re using Firefox, you can install FoxyProxy addon, which makes a process of enabling/disabling a proxy server easier.
• Go to http://www.google.com/phone. Now it should display a button for purchasing a phone
• Go through checkout process by using your existing Google account and pay using your Australian credit card and entering an address provided by Shipito as a delivery address.
• Shipito will notify you via e-mail when a new parcel arrives to their location.
• Choose a delivery method (USPS or FedEx) and complete customs declaration online. Pay for delivery using PayPal or credit card.
• Package would be send to your Australian address

Delivery timeline and costs

• Register Shipito account. US $8.50
• Jan 13 6:13 PM – Placed an order via Google web site. US $529 + US $51.58 tax. Free
• Jan 14 12:30 AM – Order is shipped as overnight delivery from Indiana (HTC America store) to California with FedEx
• Jan 14 3:00 PM – Order is received by Shipito
• Jan 15 9:06 AM – Order is shipped by Shipito via FedEx priority to Sydney for US $57.56
• Jan 16 5:00 PM – FedEx shows that parcel is in Alexandria FedEx facility in Sydney
• Jan 18 6:00 PM – I’ve piked up the parcel from FedEx office

I’ve played with some Anrioid applications using Android SDK on my PC. My first impressions with actual phone are really good. Android Market is very intuitive and easy to use. Photos taken with the phone are geotagged (check an sample photo taken on Panoramio website).