I played with my friends Nexus 9 (32GB black) last night for about 3 hours. He loves his Nexus 9 and so do I. His Nexus 9 has No light bleed issues anywhere and we were in a outside patio sports bar at night when I checked it. Also, no soft flexible spot on the back of the tablet that moved at all. The Nexus 9 seem as fast or faster than my wife's three month old $500 Samsung Tab Tab S 10.5 (16GB) with it's Exynos 5 Octa 5420 Quad-core 1.9 GHz Cortex-A15 & quad-core 1.3 GHz Cortex-A7. Even with a few games and other application process running in the background it seem very quick.
The Wi-Fi connected fast to the bars Wi-Fi and was solid. Since I have a two 16:9 Nexus 7 (2012 retired, 2013) and use my wife's Sammy Tab S with it's 16:10 aspect ratio. The 4:3 aspect ratio on the Nexus 9 really stood out the entire time to me as different. Not that is was bad or great it just was always sticking out that it had a different view than my other three Tablets. The N9's 4:3 aspect ratio seems better on games, pictures and reading online text but if movies are your thing then the 16:9/:10 aspect was better. This is a personal choice so it is hard to describe but I guess it depends on what you want to use it on. I mainly watch YouTube stuff on the Tablet but I cast any Hollywood movie to my much larger 55" HDTV set to watch a movie. The Nexus 9 would be fine for me watching a movie on a commercial jet but no tablet will ever replace a HDTV at home or in a hotel with my Chromecast.
The Nexus 9 screen has more natural colors than my wife's Tab S with it's Super AMOLED display that has more Neon saturated colors. However for games the AMOLED looks better with the over saturated deeper colors. For normal personal pictures I like the Nexus 9 for more natural colors and the 4:3 aspect just looks better for pictures of people. Both the Nexus 9 and Sammy Tab S have very good displays but on the same game you could zoom in more with the Nexus 9 to see more detail even with the smaller Nexus 9 screen. I assume this is due to the 4:3 aspect ratio you see more of the game on the screen than on the 16:9 and 16:10 devices tablets.
The Nexus 9 feels premium to me even compared to the Samsung Tab S that is a little thinner but little heaver since neither feels that different in you hand. Then again I always keep my Android devices in a case so I'm not trying to show off my device to impress other people with the bling bling value of going naked like people that are always stuck on Premium opinions. I buy a device for using it not to impress other people and I want to protect my investment with a case.
I almost never found the tiny power button but showed my friend that owned the N9 about the double Tap that eliminates most of the need for the power button except to power off instead of letting it time out. My friends only issue was that even though the Nexus 9 last him all day with his normal use he feels the battery life could be better. I told him about Google project Volta and that it may not be fully complete in his version of Lollypop.
I am waiting on the Sand color Nexus 9 since I do think they have some build issues just like the Nexus 5 as they ramp up production for the Nexus 9. I think since my friends unit and others on this board are good builds there are some early manufacturing issues that will be resolved in a short time. Lucky if you got a bad Nexus 9 build unit they will replace it. Also, I had to buy a new HDTV last week so need a few more pay checks to get a new toy since my replacement Nexus 7 (2013) is only 3 months old.
Bottom line is I would prefer the Nexus 9 over my wife's Samsung Tab S 10.5 since it fits my needs and use better. I get frustrated by TouchWiz and 64 bits CPU just has my full attention as Lollypop brings the 64bit Android era. Both are great tablets however but the Nexus 9 will get Android updates faster and with Lollypop there will be a lot of updates coming in this new generation of Android.
The Wi-Fi connected fast to the bars Wi-Fi and was solid. Since I have a two 16:9 Nexus 7 (2012 retired, 2013) and use my wife's Sammy Tab S with it's 16:10 aspect ratio. The 4:3 aspect ratio on the Nexus 9 really stood out the entire time to me as different. Not that is was bad or great it just was always sticking out that it had a different view than my other three Tablets. The N9's 4:3 aspect ratio seems better on games, pictures and reading online text but if movies are your thing then the 16:9/:10 aspect was better. This is a personal choice so it is hard to describe but I guess it depends on what you want to use it on. I mainly watch YouTube stuff on the Tablet but I cast any Hollywood movie to my much larger 55" HDTV set to watch a movie. The Nexus 9 would be fine for me watching a movie on a commercial jet but no tablet will ever replace a HDTV at home or in a hotel with my Chromecast.
The Nexus 9 screen has more natural colors than my wife's Tab S with it's Super AMOLED display that has more Neon saturated colors. However for games the AMOLED looks better with the over saturated deeper colors. For normal personal pictures I like the Nexus 9 for more natural colors and the 4:3 aspect just looks better for pictures of people. Both the Nexus 9 and Sammy Tab S have very good displays but on the same game you could zoom in more with the Nexus 9 to see more detail even with the smaller Nexus 9 screen. I assume this is due to the 4:3 aspect ratio you see more of the game on the screen than on the 16:9 and 16:10 devices tablets.
The Nexus 9 feels premium to me even compared to the Samsung Tab S that is a little thinner but little heaver since neither feels that different in you hand. Then again I always keep my Android devices in a case so I'm not trying to show off my device to impress other people with the bling bling value of going naked like people that are always stuck on Premium opinions. I buy a device for using it not to impress other people and I want to protect my investment with a case.
I almost never found the tiny power button but showed my friend that owned the N9 about the double Tap that eliminates most of the need for the power button except to power off instead of letting it time out. My friends only issue was that even though the Nexus 9 last him all day with his normal use he feels the battery life could be better. I told him about Google project Volta and that it may not be fully complete in his version of Lollypop.
I am waiting on the Sand color Nexus 9 since I do think they have some build issues just like the Nexus 5 as they ramp up production for the Nexus 9. I think since my friends unit and others on this board are good builds there are some early manufacturing issues that will be resolved in a short time. Lucky if you got a bad Nexus 9 build unit they will replace it. Also, I had to buy a new HDTV last week so need a few more pay checks to get a new toy since my replacement Nexus 7 (2013) is only 3 months old.
Bottom line is I would prefer the Nexus 9 over my wife's Samsung Tab S 10.5 since it fits my needs and use better. I get frustrated by TouchWiz and 64 bits CPU just has my full attention as Lollypop brings the 64bit Android era. Both are great tablets however but the Nexus 9 will get Android updates faster and with Lollypop there will be a lot of updates coming in this new generation of Android.
Last edited: