Gadgetory

with a 64-bit power plant a big battery and a sizable screen Google's Nexus 9 is a great showcase for the latest version of Android but with a higher than usual price tag and a design best described as nondescript is this truly the best tablet for Android lovers and is it worth your money I'm Michael Fisher with PocketNow here to hopefully help answer those questions in our Nexus 9 video review there's an elephant in the room so let's tackle it fit and finish from the perspective of a nexus product this is exactly what you'd expect a featureless slab of soft touch built to get out of the way of the software Google wants to show off and that makes sense but the Nexus 9 is also the first tablet from fancy phone maker HTC in almost four years and honestly you'd never know it yeah there's a strip of metal around the sides front-facing speakers and interesting countersunk camera lens and some cool color options but in terms of look and feel this has a lot more in common with last year's Nexus 5 with the addition of a cheap feeling flex - its smudge tastic back cover I mean come on guys again it's a comfortable design in a manageable size but we can't help but be disappointed that HTC wasn't able to bring more of its signature high-end design to this hardware if you're more of a fan of the book then the cover the story gets much more interesting the Nexus 9 breaks up the Snapdragon monotony with a processor from Nvidia called the Tegra k1 a 64-bit chip using dual Denver cores and supported by two gigs of RAM what's that mean for performance we'll get to in a second but for now we'll just say that it's a mighty powerful slab of silicon there's no microSD expansion here and storage options are limited to 16 or 32 gigs or 11 or 25 if you want to be real about it another slight disappointment what space the Nexus 9 lacks in storage it makes up for in display area like a perfectly sized bowl of porridge the 8.9 inch IPS panel is just right allowing for a chassis that's easy to hold even one-handed while providing enough display area to actually enjoy videos or actually accomplish work it's black levels are nothing to scream about and its color is fine what's really notable here is the four by three aspect ratio and how well the new version of android works with it lollipop is the real star of the show here and not just because the hardware is so forgettable visually speaking android 5.0 is the most significant the most refreshing overhaul of Google's operating system since 2011 Google put a lot of TLC into the little things like the coordinated animations when unlocking the screen or the super quick jump to monochrome when locking it tapping items results in ripples and pulling on a stopped list gives you waves the fresh paint job on important or central items gives the whole interface a brighter friendlier look and feel with an almost playful attitude reflected even in the sound effect and all this extra personality is implemented without compromising performance the more you use it the more fun little touches you discover with lollipop Google also addresses one of our longest held complaints widgets the janky misaligned mass of years past has been replaced with the responsive design that keeps everything organized pretty well in both portrait and landscape modes but you probably won't spend much time in widescreen because lollipop looks great in portrait Google now and settings are prime examples using a two column format to display more info at a glance which means you don't have to scroll as much and the added area also gives apps like the new Google calendar room to play lest we praise our jobs away here there are a few knits to pick the new multitasking card view is nice and portraits but feels like a waste in landscape where a horizontal ribbon seems the better choice double tap to wake is a great add-on given the mushy side keys but sometimes it takes a few taps to work auto brightness is so slow and indecisive that you're better off disabling it testing display levels manually and like all mobile devices there are some sluggish bits on this one multitasking takes a few seconds to load sometimes rotating from portrait to landscape is also sometimes languid affair stress the thing with a bunch of high demand games in a row and it'll take some time to redraw the homescreen minor stuff like this doesn't really take away from the slick bright beauty of the OS as a whole but it is a tad concerning given all the power under the hood here of course we'll keep an eye on it for the next few months and report on how much lag creeps in in our usual after the buzz re review sadly but predictably slick bright beauty is not what you'll get from the Nexus 9 camera on either side whether you're using the 8 megapixel primary camera or the 1.2 megapixel front faces aren't likely to get much better than fine Google's camera app is great on a phone but it's clumsy on a tablet manual exposure swings are too severe focus drifts too easily and the shutter doesn't fire until a few beats after you hit the button while you can get the occasional worthwhile photo out of it the end results are never consistently impressive you shouldn't be relying on your tablet as a camera anyway and the Nexus 9 reinforces exactly why for some an Nvidia processor is synonymous with gaming so we tried out a wide range of titles on the Nexus 9 we're so used to snapdragon powered phones and tablets that we get thrown for a loop when one of our preferred games doesn't work this isn't the Nexus 9 s fault per se it's just a symptom of some developers not coding for particular hardware but compatibility is always something to keep in mind if you're excited about running a particular title on a new device and oddly some games which ran fine at first refused to run later on in our testing so we don't know what to make of that the good news is that the Nexus 9 runs many games with no trouble at all some of these are showcased in Nvidia's Tegra zone 2 app a clunky but useful way to curate candidates when you've got a long flight coming up and a bunch of game buying money burning a hole in your pocket we tested flying games like shadow strike and Red Bull Air Race adventure titles like Iron Man 3 and Space simulators like galaxies on fire - and interstellar pilot most of these are elaborate and demanding and we had to restart the tablet between titles to avoid crashes but as Spock would say sauce for the goose that kind of thing is par for the course with any mobile device and when games ran gameplay was excellent Google seems to have solved the overheating issue with its latest software update to the tablet does get warm to the touch but not the finger sweaty hot we experienced in our first impressions pass during gameplay we get a really nice earful of audio from the twin boom sound speakers flanking the display and that crosses over to movie-watching - front firing Audio is where it's at and HTC as usual has delivered that we wish these were machined speaker holes as they are the slots gather a lot of dust as for how well sixteen by nine media plays on a four by three screen well yeah the letterboxing is a little annoying if you're paying attention to it but put on a good enough movie or turn the lights down a little and you probably won't notice too much sauce for the goose mr. Saavik the odds will be even finally how many movies can you watch before you'll need to plug in HTC claims up to nine and a half hours on the 6700 milliamp hour battery and while we haven't had the time to watch the full Daniel Craig James Bond trilogy to test that promise it's an easy one to believe we got over six hours of screen on time on our first charge and even more on subsequent cycles most of them with very heavy use with more judicious use it's easy to see the Nexus 9 lasting two or even three days between charges longer if you use the new battery saver built into Android 5 when I first laid hands on the Nexus 9 several weeks ago my initial thought was this is it it seemed like a huge missed opportunity for Google to use HTC as the builder but shackle it to such a dull and predictable design like calling in a world-class chef to cook you Kraft macaroni and cheese and I still feel that way about the hardware it's powerful it's comfy and the boom sound is great but overall it's absolutely nothing special as others have said the real star here is Android 5.0 and where the hardware is a letdown the software is just brilliant lollipop is the first version of Android I'd feel comfortable recommending to both a tech reluctant parent and a tech obsessed colleague it's friendly yet powerful unique but familiar and on a four by three screen it absolutely shines given that strange combination of stellar software and ho-hum hardware the end result is worth buying there's more positive than negative here and this is a solid advancement of the Nexus family but even though it's priced in line with other high-end Android tablet 399 is a steep price to pay for the compromises you're getting in design display storage and even performance so you'll definitely want to wait for the price to come down before committing to this newest of the NEX eye for more Nexus 9 impressions check out last week's pocket now weekly podcast also be sure to check out our full Nexus 9 written review at now available November 14 and please press the thumbs up button below if you enjoyed this video until next time this has been michael fisher with pocket now captain to phones on twitter reminding you that a tightly glued back cover is a happy back cover we'll see you next time