The long awaited Google tablet is launched officially today. It’s been a year and 4 months since the last Nexus tablet was announced. Google collaborates with different manufacturers to make its own branded phones and tablets. This year they went with HTC for the tablet and Motorola for their new phone. Very odd choices, considering HTC hasn’t made a tablet in 3 years, and even then, they made few, and not very successful. Motorola is also slightly odd as it doesn’t hold a great market share worldwide. Alas, they have never been wrong, and their commitment to delivering great products paid off.
The Google HTC Nexus 9 has a 8.9 inch screen with a 1536×2048 resolution. It’s very slim and Google claims it has a thin bezel around the screen. While most tablets do indeed have large bezels, the new HTC Tablet isn’t exactly impressive. Samsung’s Tab S and LG G-Pad have much less useless space around the screen. Another feature lacking is microSD slot. Being limited to 16GB or 32 GB options is very unappealing in this day and age. 10 years ago iPods with 160 GB of memory were the norm. Now, the best we can do is still 32GB? I think not. Of course Google has a vested interest in going card-less: Google Drive. The service allows up to 15GB for free, and goes to 100GB for 2$/month. It’s a good offer, but who wants to rely on a permanent internet connection to reach all their stuff?
It has though, one redeeming feature: it’s a Nexus. These devices don’t feature any bloatware. No apps from HTC or other manufacturers. You can have your device with the OS as it was designed by Google themselves. Another advantage of this is instant upgrades to newer versions of the OS – and they do make quite a few. You’re guaranteed a few years of newest OS on your device. With tweaked versions of Android that you find in most Android phones, you have to wait for the manufacturer to develop their own version with their respective adjustments. Not to mention they stop upgrading after a certain period of time, and even so, upgrades are few and far apart. Under the hood you get the fastest processor available for a tablet: the Tegra K-1. One thing the Nexus devices promise is: you won’t be outdated anytime soon.
[ads2]
One chapter where Google strayed from their recent past is pricing. The Nexus 7 as well as the Nexus 4 and 5 were very reasonably priced for their capabilities. Now the company took a shift towards the mainstream, with the Nexus 9 sold from 399$ for the 16GB to 599$ for the 32GB with LTE cellular connection. If you are looking for something cheaper, the Xiaomi Pad has similar specs, 128 card capacity and the same battery capacity and same resolution, even though it’s one inch smaller.