Do you want to Buy the new Intex Aquafish from India? [not relevant]
Disclaimer:
I am not a Jolla or Intex employee, nor am I associated with any of their partners anywhere in the world.
Update 5: Ebay India (ebay.in) doesn't accept PayPal for any orders on ebay.in. Due to stricter regulation by the Reserve Bank of India, eBay.in uses another service, called PaisaPay, to process payment for any order on ebay India. PaisaPay is similar to Paypal and also owned by eBay. Thus it is as safe as PayPal. You do not need to create a separate PaisaPay account and it will be shown automatically when you checkout to pay for an order. Please note that some users have reported that ebay has asked them to send additional documents - like photo of the debit / credit card used to make the payment and / or copy of last credit card statement. These additional verifications checks are to make sure that you are not using someone else's stolen debit / credit cards.
Tip: If you've emailed any documents to ebay, delete the email copy from your sent folder. That way, if you email account is hacked, you can ensure that your credit card info isn't stolen.
Update 4: Intex has started selling the Aqua Fish on ebay.in (Ebay India). The Intex authorised ebay seller will also ship the phone to any address in Americas, Europe, Asia. This makes things much easier for all those of you who are interested in importing this phone from India. As a reputed ecommerce company, eBay can ensure that you can safely buy and import this phone into your country with the least hassle (unlike through an individual like me who is ignorant about many aspect of international trade, and is also a stranger to you). It is perhaps due to the interest shown by all of you that Intex may have chosen ebay as their preferred online outlet - so that foreign buyers too can find it easy to procure the phone. As such, I strongly advise you to buy the phone through ebay.in ...
P.S: When I placed an order on ebay.in, and gave a US (New York) shipping address, the shipping charges shown was Rs. 1,600.00 (roughly around $25). As the phone costs Rs. 5500 (around $80), the total cost to import the phone to NY, US comes to only $80 + $25 = $105 (note: there may be additional currency conversion charges by ebay and import duty charges that I am unaware of).
If you need any help or have any doubts, let me know and I'll try my best to help you out.
Update 3: Apparently there was some confusion and Intex seems to have launched the Aquafish without much fanfare and publicity. Jolla has confirmed that the phone is indeed now available for sale. I talked with Intex India sales and they confirmed that the phone is also available for sale through their retail outlets. They have also confirmed that extra batteries, if required is available with them. (I have to however check with the couriers if extra batteries can be shipped separately, as there is tighter regulation for the same).
Update 2: The Jolla C (C is for "community" edition) is (in all probabilities) the new Intex Aquafish (with a branded Jolla cover, and a different Sailfish OS version - without all the crapware called partner-space). It was directly made available in Europe by Jolla to beta test the hardware / software of Intex Aquafish before its final launch. It is also the official developer phone of Jolla now. As such I strongly urge all who have shown interest here in buying the Intex Aquafish from India (through me) to contact Jolla and tell them you are very much interested in the Jolla C phone and would prefer to directly purchase it from them. Please also upvote and add to this discussion - Jolla C - campaign to add more users - who's interested?.
For those who have already shown interest by posting here, and couldn't get the Jolla C or are impatient and don't want to wait for it, my original offer still stands - will update when the phone launches.
If you are interested in this proposal, please POST as an answer here (rather then leave a comment). That way, I can easily count how many of you are on-board.
The new, licensed Sailfish OS powered Intex Aquafish was announced by Jolla and Intex at MWC16 recently. In all probabilities, the phone will be available only in India first, and will not be sold overseas. (Intex is an indian company). (I assumed wrong - the Jolla C phone is the Intex Aquafish with a different Sailfish OS version, and was launched in Europe first directly by Jolla).
For those of you really interested in purchasing and importing the phone from India, I can offer a solution. As an Indian, I can easily purchase the phone and ship it to you.
The process will be as follows:
- Contact me and sign-up with the escrow service.
- Deposit the money (all inclusive) with the escrow service.
- I will receive confirmation from escrow that you have deposited the money.
- I will then purchase and ship the phone (Fedex / DHL only) to you.
- Tracking number will be provided to you.
- Once the phone reaches you, I will request the escrow service to release the payment to me.
- The escrow service will ask you to confirm the release of the payment.
- If you are satisfied, release the payment.
- If you think you have been cheated, you can raise a dispute with the escrow service.
- The escrow will mediate between us.
Total cost will be - Price of phone + shipping charges + escrow charges (usually 10% of total amount) + customs handling charges (if applicable) + customs fees (if applicable) + VAT (if applicable). I won't be charging anything extra, and will be doing this on a no profit - no loss basis.
Please note that I haven't researched the actual charges or any of the local legal implications, for me, yet. While I have used escrow services before, freelancing as a developer, I will also have to explore whether such kind of deals are within their terms. If you are truly interested, please post below and then I will do further research and get back to you.
Europeans, please note that Intex Aquafish is NOT CE certified - I queried Intex about this and they have confirmed that their devices don't have this certification. Worst case, this could mean that customs can confiscate this device and decline its import to your country (this is supposed to be quite rare according to the comments and discussions below - use your own judgement).
There is no clear information on the phone specs yet or the launch date -
this site has a different set of specs than this one*. I thought the phone would be launched in April 2016 but some sites say July 2016. Wikipedia page on Aqua Fish (when I checked last) says the phone will be launched only in September 2016 (the date in the wiki page has been changed again, but I think September 2016 is accurate).
*The phone specs should be similar to the Jolla C smartphone (scroll to the bottom).
If you are interested, please POST as an answer here (rather then leave a comment). That way, I can easily count how many of you are on-board. Once I decide to go ahead, I will update here with further details.
Update: All of your enthusiasm is contagious! As the first step, I'll enquire with Fedex / DHL / EMS what paperwork is legally required from me to be able to ship the phones abroad.
(While ideally, this should be a wiki, I will leave it as a Q&A due to the monetary nature of the proposal - to avoid any trolls from editing this post and adding any kind of misleading information).
Looks like a great offer but you should charge as a bare minimum of at least 5% to cover the expenses this type of project will incur.
Richard
richardski ( 2016-03-03 17:52:59 +0200 )editSounds cool, how can we contact you?
steffenl ( 2016-03-03 17:53:07 +0200 )edit@richardski - Thanks for the suggestion. I, of course, do not wish to lose any money in the process. Overall, except for my time, I don't for see any additional expense. The phone will probably be sold online through Jolla's online indian partner who will ship the phone directly to my house. For delivery, Fedex / DHL can be asked to do a pick-up directly from my house too. They will also provide the packing material for free. It is only the currency fluctuations (between $US and INR) that worries me, and I will certainly need to hedge against that.
sifartech ( 2016-03-03 19:27:37 +0200 )edit@steffenl - If you are interested, please post as an answer here (rather then a comment). The answers will help me easily count how many are really onboard. Once I decide to go ahead, I will leave a comment to your answer and also update my post here with further details.
sifartech ( 2016-03-03 19:38:48 +0200 )editIt would probably also make sense to do combined shipping for users that are local to each other, and distribute the goods at e.g. SUG meetings. Less work for sifartech, and split shipping costs for buyers.
Okw ( 2016-03-03 23:51:26 +0200 )edit