Nexus 9 Ships Today With 'Denver' Processor And Android 5.0 Lollipop

News
By Lucian Armasu
published

HTC has begun fulfilling pre-orders for the Nexus 9 tablet today. Unfortunately, it seems the tablet is hard to find in the Play Store, much like the Nexus 6. Google has had a few years to deal with Nexus launches, so it's strange that this year it's doing so badly with the launch of the Nexus 6 and Nexus 9. Either the devices are much more popular than last year's Nexus 5 and what they expected, or they didn't expect to sell too many of them in the first place.

Google hasn't launched a new Nexus tablet in two years, and tablets aren't some of the hottest selling products right now. As for the Nexus 6, they may have realized the 6" screen would appeal to even fewer people than the Nexus 5 did, and prepared fewer units. Regardless of the reason, hopefully, it won't take too long for Google to start selling new units soon.

The Nexus 9 is the first Android tablet to have an Nvidia Denver CPU that has very high single-threaded performance. However, it doesn't have a very high multi-threaded performance due to the fact that it's only a dual-core CPU. Many other chips powering Android devices have four cores or more, so they may score higher in multi-threaded benchmarks and possibly even perform better in heavy multi-tasking.

The device is also the first to come with Android 5.0 Lollipop, a major redesign of Android both in terms of looks and in terms of functionality. The new version arrives with over 5,000 new APIs. Many are new, while others are just overhauled to make third-party developers' jobs easier.

The Nexus 9 is one of the few Android tablets to have a 4:3 ratio, much like iPads. The 16:10 ratio of Android tablets has made them almost unusable in portrait mode if they are over 8" large. The new 4:3 ratio does increase the letterboxes for movies and videos a little, but the trade-off in usability for most other apps is probably worth it. The tablet also has a 2048 x 1536 resolution, which is the same as the iPad Air 2, but the tablet is slightly smaller with a screen size of 8.9". This should also make it a little easier to hold.

Other specs include 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of storage for the base model, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1, DLNA, 8MP rear camera, 1.6MP front-camera and a 6,700 mAh battery.

The 16 GB Wi-Fi version is now being sold for $400, and the 32 GB version costs $480, but as mentioned earlier, it will be hard to find them in the Play Store. If you do find one, the tablet should ship within "1-2 days." The 32 GB LTE version will be "coming soon."

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Lucian Armasu
Lucian Armasu
Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He covers software news and the issues surrounding privacy and security.
30 Comments Comment from the forums
  • anthony8989
    "The Nexus 9 is the first Android tablet to have an Nvidia Denver CPU that has very high single-threaded performance. However, it doesn't have a very high multi-threaded performance due to the fact that it's only a dual-core CPU."

    What are you basing these claims on? If it's your own speculation then you know pretty damn little about the Denver K1, or in SoC's in general...

    You do understand that the Denver K1 employs a 7 way superscalar, higher core frequency, and an L1 cache that blows the Snapdragon 805's clear out of the water. Early benchmarks are showing this chip beating out the Note 4, iPhone 6 +, S5 , pretty much everything on the market to date.

    Honestly why make baseless assertions like that?
    Reply
  • dstarr3
    The tablet does look tempting, but if you don't put a microSD slot on your tablet, you don't get my money. Sorry, Google.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    Considering how bad my luck was with getting a fully functional N7-2013, how Google's forums were flooded with the same handful of complaints for the first many months from launch and how people buying them today still encounter many of the same launch issues, I would not be too surprised if Google was limiting initial availability to field-test it before risking another embarrassing flood of complaints.
    Reply
  • rishiswaz
    "The Nexus 9 is the first Android tablet to have an Nvidia Denver CPU that has very high single-threaded performance. However, it doesn't have a very high multi-threaded performance due to the fact that it's only a dual-core CPU."

    What are you basing these claims on? If it's your own speculation then you know pretty damn little about the Denver K1, or in SoC's in general...

    You do understand that the Denver K1 employs a 7 way superscalar, higher core frequency, and an L1 cache that blows the Snapdragon 805's clear out of the water. Early benchmarks are showing this chip beating out the Note 4, iPhone 6 +, S5 , pretty much everything on the market to date.

    Honestly why make baseless assertions like that?

    Your support is rather baseless as well unless you have benchmarks to prove otherwise. He is going off of what is known, it is a dual core 64 bit SoC with a Kepler GPU. We really don't know how Denver is going to be until there are hard numbers behind it. Unless you have proof besides Nvidia's spec sheet you have no argument either.
    The iPhone 6 outperforms the Galaxy S 5 in a lot of benchmarks, a dual core 1.3 Ghz A8 vs a quad core 2.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801. Denver may well blow everything out of the water but it is still a big question mark.
    Reply
  • anthony8989
    Your support is rather baseless as well unless you have benchmarks to prove otherwise. He is going off of what is known, it is a dual core 64 bit SoC with a Kepler GPU. We really don't know how Denver is going to be until there are hard numbers behind it. Unless you have proof besides Nvidia's spec sheet you have no argument either.
    The iPhone 6 outperforms the Galaxy S 5 in a lot of benchmarks, a dual core 1.3 Ghz A8 vs a quad core 2.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801. Denver may well blow everything out of the water but it is still a big question mark.

    Why don't you try googling the things you talk about before talking out of your ass?

    I recommend googling " Nexus 9 review" or "Nvidia Denver K1 benchmarks"...
    Reply
  • captaincharisma
    screw the micro SD port i have had the 32GB nexus 7 2012 for 3 years now and have not once run out of memory
    Reply
  • DSpider
    16 GB is pathetic. 16 GB had my 2009-bought iPod touch 2G (5 years ago, which is a LONG time in technology terms). 16 GB flash sticks are dirt cheapt. What the hell, Google?

    You place a Full HD movie on it and that's it, the OS takes up the rest.
    Reply
  • Nuck Chorris
    Why couldn't they just add an SD card slot?! Even $20 phones have it.
    Reply
  • house70
    Considering how all my Nexus devices had zero problems and that they were always the first to receive updates, I have no problem getting the new tablet. The old ones will be passed down in my family.
    Reply
  • house70
    14511959 said:
    16 GB is pathetic. 16 GB had my 2009-bought iPod touch 2G (5 years ago, which is a LONG time in technology terms). 16 GB flash sticks are dirt cheapt. What the hell, Google?

    You place a Full HD movie on it and that's it, the OS takes up the rest.

    That's why you can get the 32GB version. Or you could get an USB OTG stick for your media.
    Reply