The Nexus 9 was officially unveiled on October 15, and now the reviews are starting to trickle in. The friendly roundup will hopefully give some indicator if the Android 5.0 Lollipop-equipped tablet from HTC is a safe purchase. The HTC-branded tablet, the nine-inch Nexus 9, is the manufacturer’s return to the Nexus brand, and it does so triumphantly with a brand new device running a clean install of Google’s newest version of their mobile platform, Android. With Android 5.0 Lollipop, plenty of new additions, tweaks and upgrades have been made, along with a new look in Material Design. How does it all stack up, though? Reviews are in:
9to5 Google
The Verge
Engadget
CNet
As is usually par for the course, reviews tend to offer a wide look at a device as a whole, even when focused on one aspect. After catching these snippets, do you plan on picking up the Nexus 9? Thanks to its processor and GPU setup, the Nexus 9 flies through tasks like a boss. Multitasking is smooth, animations are slick, and if you’re a fan of Android, then you’ll fall in love with the software experience here. Material design is a big change for Android. Everything is animated and you get a real sense of direction when navigating through the user interface. There’s a nice flow to every transition and the tablet apps have seen a lot of optimization which is always a welcomed improvement.“ With all of those bits and cores, one would expect the Nexus 9 to be extremely fast without any performance hiccups, but sadly that is not the case. Stutters and slowdowns are plentiful, apps take a long time to open and load, and some apps just crashed repeatedly. Once a game like Goat Simulator or Monument Valley does load, game play is fine, with steady framerates and no lag. It’s just a chore to get there.“ Navigating the OS is swift and switching between apps is so quick it’s almost eerie. Performance also remains impressively smooth when many apps are open in the background. At one point I had over 20 apps running and I was still able to play large games without a hitch.“
