

There is metal present though, coming around the rim of the tablet. While I'd have loved a really premium feel to the back of the new Nexus, the matte back is definitely easier to grip, which makes it a little easier to understand. It's bad enough from general fingerprints, but the second you get some proper lard on there, it's probably never going to leave. So whether you're showing off a YouTube video to friends or you just want some tunes when you're ploughing through a recipe in the kitchen, these are a great addition to things.īe warned if you're going to take the Nexus 9 into the kitchen: the rubbery back loves to suck up grease like there's no tomorrow. While I still think the overall audio quality is better on the One M8, and other HTC phones that have sucked in the same technology, they're still super clear on the Nexus 9. Initially sceptical when I saw this on phones, I came to realise I used it much more than I thought I would. One of the other things HTC has brought from its smartphone range is the BoomSound speakers, front-facing grilles that bring a much better sound quality to things when you're trying watch bits and pieces without headphones. Curiously, it's not available on the Nexus 6, but given this can be a fiddly tablet to use, it's a godsend. Oh, and the double-tap to wake mechanism has been ported to the Nexus 9, thanks to be enabled in Lollipop.
#NEXUS 9 NOTIFICATION LIGHT ANDROID#
While we're not saying you should start downloading movies to view while driving, that interoperability is going to make everything so much easier if, as expected, the car and TV manufacturers really get on board.īut the upshot is that Android 5.0 is the easiest version of the little green robot's OS ever, and you'll like being able to customise as you see fit.

It's already coming to phones, you'll see it on your watch, and then the TV and car in 2015. The other thing that's great about Lollipop is that it's going to run loads of places. Here's hoping we're not going to get a Tron-like escape at any point. It's like the humble post it note was given a massive makeover and shoved into a virtual reality world. There's also Material Design: everything is flatter, but with some artful shadows. It's easily one of the best things about the Nexus 9, with the improved notifications (you can manipulate them much easier and even respond to things from a simple update) making using your tablet a much more simple affair. The reason it's significant can't be summed up in one go: it's a new take on the way Android looks, where it can be used and what you can do with it. It's not something you'll see every day, but compare it to the sumptuous tones and deep blacks of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S and you'll see what's missing.Īndroid 5 is here people, and this is one of the poster boys for the new OS. The other big issue is the light bleeding in from the sides of the bezel, the LED lights that let you see what's on the screen shining through like over-enthusiastic floodlights at the Insect World Cup. But there's also something lacking here as well, thanks to not quite making colours as vivid as they could be, which is something of a shame.

It's also an IPS LCD that should, in theory, be better at colours and viewing angles and all that eye-based stuff. HTC and Google have gone up a notch with the display on the Nexus 9, matching Apple's iPad Air 2 with a 2048 x 1536 resolution which automatically becomes a lot sharper thanks to being crammed into a smaller window. So is this the tablet for you? Are you going to go all Android for your tablet needs, taking in the new document management and web browsing space while staring sadly at the black bars above and below your videos? As usual Apple still adds a premium to the tag of its tablet, but given the Nexus 7 was so cheap it's a little sad to have to pay so much for the new version. Google teamed up with HTC to make this flagship Android tablet, and with it nabbed some of the bits that made the HTC One M8 one of the best phones on the market, and squished them into a frame that's certainly a lot more lovely to hold than any of the previous Nexii tablets.īut what of the price? It's not cheap at £319 for the 16GB version, and £399 for 32GB of internal storage is verging on iPad territory. It's a bit of a feather in the cap for Apple, as the big change is to the screen size: not only larger, but the 4:3 aspect ratio parrots that of Cupertino's slate hero, the iPad Air 2.Īctually, all the iPads, but that's the one that people will compare the Nexus 9 to.
