Google’s latest flagship tablet computer, the much awaited Google Nexus 9, is available through Google Play starting today in selected territories, Cnet reports. Currently, users can purchase the WiFi version of the tablet, in black or white, with 16GB and 32GB storage space. The LTE version is currently listed as “coming soon”.
The 16GB Nexus 9 is sold for $399, £319 or AU$479, while the 32GB version sells for $479, £399 or AU$589. The 32GB 4G LTE version will sell for $599, £459 or AU$719 as soon as it is released. There is no word about when the “sand” version of the tablet will be released. The Nexus 9, Google’s first device running Android 5.0 Lollipop, is currently available for customers in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Sweden, South Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Switzerland.
The Nexus 9 is Google’s new flagship tablet, providing guidance for tablet manufacturers around the world to how they should build their devices. It has a considerably strong hardware: an nVidia Tegra K1 64bit processor paired with a 192 core Kepler GPU, a 8.9″ IPS LCD screen with a QXGA (2048 x 1536 pixels) resolution and a 287 ppi (pixels per inch) pixel density, and a 4:3 aspect ratio. It has an 8 megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a 1.6 megapixel front camera for video chat and selfies, stereo speakers on the front, microphones at the bottom, Bluetooth 4.1 and LTE – in short, everything a user might expect from a modern tablet computer. With its 8.9″ display the Nexus 9 places itself in the middle between small, 7″ devices and larger 10″ ones, and competes directly with Apple’s latest tablet computers – the Apple iPad Air 2 with its 9.7″ screen, and the iPad Mini 3 with its 7.9″ touchscreen. When it comes to its price, the Nexus is better – with its $399 base price it is a full $100 cheaper than Apple’s flagship tablet.