Review: Nexus 9 – is Google's new iPad lookalike the best showcase for Android Lollipop?

On paper, the Nexus 9 should be the perfect showcase for Google's staggeringly good Android 5.0 Lollipop operating system.

Unfortunately, despite a hefty bump in price since its last tablet iteration, the build quality of Google’s premium-priced Nexus 9 leaves a lot to be desired.

The tablet creaks and squeaks during light use and the pixel-packed display is suprisingly underwhelming and bland.

The hardware – like all Nexus devices – is built to flaunt Google’s latest operating system.

But the stunningly beautiful and feature-packed Android 5.0 Lollipop deserves better than the Nexus 9.

The Daily Express Online picked up a Lunar White Nexus 9 a little over two weeks ago and has been playing games, watching films and trying to push Google’s new tablet to its limits ever since.

Look & Feel

With the Nexus 9, Google ditched both the slender 16:9 widescreen frame of last year’s Nexus 7 and the chunky landscape-only 8:5 look of the Nexus 10, in favour of the iPad’s 4:3 aspect ratio.

This change, coupled with the device’s premium pricetag, immediately invites a comparison with Apple’s best-selling tablet range. 

Unfortunately, the Nexus 9 fails to match its closest rival in almost every way.

Thanks to its new 4:3 frame, Nexus 9 occupies a happy-median between ultra-portable 7-inch tablets and larger productivity-minded devices. Google describes its new size choice as “big enough to work and watch on, but small enough to carry around in one hand”.

Its surprising just how well the Nexus 9 does work in one hand – helped by a new software tweak that allows user’s to lightly double-tap the screen to wake the device. 

This bypasses the usual fumble for the power button and means that, despite its larger footprint, the tablet is not impossible to wield in one hand.

The front of the Nexus 9 is dominated by an 8.9-inch screen, crowned with a 1.6megapixel video chat camera.

Cut-outs in the bezels at the top and bottom of the tablet house two front-facing HTC BoomSound speakers.

Despite their slim form factor, the speakers are surprisingly loud and pleasingly clear. But unfortunately their placement in the bezels means they fall directly beneath the user’s thumbs, when the tablet is held in landscape.

Aside from the trademark BoomSound speakers and a pleasingly-premium metal band that wraps around the device, there is little about the Nexus 9 to hint at HTC’s involvement.

This is somewhat disappointing, since the company boasts the best design chops of any Android manufacturer working today, proven with last year’s stellar HTC One M8.

There is nothing wrong with the subdued style of the Nexus 9 – but equally there is little to help it stand-out from a category saturated with similarly vanilla, black slates.

The uninspired but adequate design of the tablet is best exemplified with the rear shell – which is the spitting image of Google’s successful Nexus 5 smartphone, released back in October 2013. Available in Sand, Lunar White and Indigo Black – the case has a pleasant soft-touch coating, which has an egg shell texture. 

The rear also houses the tablet’s 8megapixel rear-facing camera which also comes complete with auto-focus and a separate LED flash.

These are both nice additions and improve the point-and-shoot potential of the Nexus 9.

The rear-camera gets the job done, but shouldn’t be relied on for that once-in-a-lifetime family photo.

When compared to the iPad Air 2, its clear Apple is still miles ahead of Google when it comes to tablet photography. 

But compared to samples from a Nexus 7, and the latest offering from Google shows some improvement.

The rear shell also carries the HTC and Nexus logos.

Unfortunately, the Nexus 9 lacks the refinement and build quality usually associated with these two brands.

The Nexus 9 squeaks, creaks, clicks and groans during normal day-to-day use and radiates an unshakeable impression its just one accidental-sitting-on away from splintering beyond repair. 

The rear shell bulges and will flex with the lightest touch. 

This all adds up to a major flaw for a £319 tablet.

And unfortunately, the quality of the hardware is not the only area in which the Nexus 9 fails to live up to its premium RRP.

Screen

The Nexus 9 boasts an 2048 x 1536pixel IPS LCD display.

That translates to an impressive 281pixels-per-inch – which comfortably bests the iPad Air 2’s 264ppi but fails to match the eye-watering 339ppi display on Amazon’s Fire HDX 8.9.

But while sharp, the screen is disappointingly dimly-lit and washed-out. For a tablet built to flaunt the colourful Android Lollipop OS, the Nexus 9 is surprisingly bland.

To make matters worse, display backlight bleeds profusely from the edges of the screen.

Its frustrating that Google has lumbered its device with such a subpar display. 

On paper, the Nexus 9 should shine.

In reality, its dimly lit screen barely twinkles.

Software

While the Nexus 9 hardware consistently fails to meet expectations, the software powering the device exceeds almost every assumption about Android.

Lollipop is an ambitious, colourful and modern update to the Android operating system.

The update ditches Google’s previous gloomy back and neon menus for a stylish and sparse whitewashed look.

Lollipop proves that the Californian search giant is capable of  standing toe-to-toe with Apple’s best design efforts. 

Google has branded its new style chops "Material Design”.

The new design language throws buckets of bright colour and drops playful animations into every corner of the previously drab Android operating system. 

Lollipop is an unadulterated joy to use – boasting sprightly animations, subtly textured whites and dazzlingly colours.

Every swipe and tap feels responsive and satisfying - with menus popping and bouncing in and out of view.

After spending an extended time with the latest version of Android almost every other mobile operating system starts to feel static and bland. Something that was never true of Google’s functional-but-ultimately-uninspired past efforts.

But Lollipop is not simply an aesthetic update.

Android 5.0 adds a number of new features – including some clever tweaks to notifications. 

In Lollipop, pressing an active notification in the lock screen brings up a series of smart actions – allowing users to quickly triage incoming emails, respond to calendar reminders and reply to text messages. This is a massive improvement – and is especially powerful when coupled with the double-tap to wake feature bundled with the Nexus 9.

Google has also packed in more functionality to its quick-settings dropdown. 

This light-weight menu combines the two different pulldowns in previous versions of Android and offers access to the operating system’s most common settings – including wifi, bluetooth, location and more. Frustratingly, Google doesn’t allow users to customise the settings in this menu – leaving a permanent Cast Screen icon even when the user doesn’t own a Google ChromeCast. 

Lollipop also adds Priority mode – which disables all but the most important notifications for a pre-set amount of time.

Finally, Google has reinvented its multi-tasking.

Gone is the flat stack of app windows – replaced with a fluid and fun virtual rolodex. The redesign is fast and practical when using the Nexus 9 in portrait – but leaves huge swathes of unused space when rotated to landscape.

Finally, in Lollipop each individual Chrome window is treated as a separate app – allowing users to sort through their games, web browsing and other open apps in one quick flick. It also shows Google blurring the lines between online apps, webpages with the offerings from Google Play – something its Chromebook range has long strived to do as well.

While not always as fast to find the correct Chrome tab or app as in previous versions of Android, the new multi-tasking – like everything in Lollipop – looks amazing. It also naturally translates and fills out the new 4:3 Nexus 9 aspect ratio.

Despite Google’s proud boasts about the Nexus 9 being the first Android tablet to use a chip with 64-bit architecture, the 2.3GHz NVIDIA Tegra still struggles with performance.

The Nexus 9 will drag its feet with most heavy lifting and its egg-shell casing quickly heats-up during even minor gaming.

Lollipop deserves better than the Nexus 9.