As widely rumoured, Google’s announced the latest refresh to its Nexus tablet lines, with HTC producing the Nexus 9 tablet. Here’s the basic rundown.
The Nexus 9 will be the first tablet running Google’s latest iteration of Android, previously only referred to as “Android L” but now more formally known as “Android Lollipop”. In pure specification terms, you’re looking at an 8.9″ 2048×1536 281ppi display with a 64-bit 2.3 GHz NVIDIA Tegra K1 processor, either 16GB or 32GB of storage and 2GB of RAM. There’s no microSD card slot, however, so buying up in storage terms would be wise.
A 6700mAh battery keeps the Nexus 9 ticking. In camera terms, there’s an 8MP rear and 1.6MP front camera. There will be an LTE model of the Nexus 9, although it’s not yet clear whether we’ll see that particular model in Australia.
Actually, that’s the one detail that Google’s omitted to mention, and that’s local availability.
Update: Google Australia has confirmed with me that they’ll be available to pre-order in November, but not the pricing we’ll pay.
US pre-orders start on the 17th of October with retail availability there starting at $US399 for the 16GB model, $US479 for the 32GB model and $599 for the LTE-enabled 32GB model. There’s also an optional keyboard case coming at $US220, which is seriously pricey for a tablet keyboard. Perhaps they’ve been learning pricing lessons from Microsoft.