The new Nexus 9 tablet will carry the flag for Google's new Android 5.0 "Lollipop" OS. Just like previous Nexus devices, the Nexus 9 isn't the thinnest or the cheapest Android tablet. But it's certainly the Googliest, and that may make it a cult hit.
The $399 Nexus 9 is made by HTC, and it has the high-quality fit and finish you expect from that manufacturer. The design isn't bleeding-edge - there's a significant bezel around the 8.9-inch, 2,048-by-1,536 screen, for instance. That display is a decent LCD, sharp but without the amazing glowiness you find on the Samsung Galaxy Tab S line.
The body is tightly built and slim (although not as slim as Samsung's or Apple's latest entries.) They keep it tight by sealing in the battery and excluding a MicroSD card slot, which I know will get mixed reviews. (The $399 price is for a 16GB unit; the 32GB unit, which you should probably buy, costs $479.)
I like the soft-touch back, which reminded me of Amazon's new Fire HDX 8.9; this tablet will be easy to hang on to and won't slide off tables. The 8-megapixel camera protrudes just a little bit from the corner, like the iPhone 6 camera.
The Nexus 9 revisits troubled ground for Google and HTC, its manufacturer. HTC hasn't done a tablet since the 7-inch Flyer in 2011, which ironically failed in part because its version of Android wasn't designed well for tablets. Google's last stab at a large tablet was the Nexus 10, which struggled in part because it was extremely buggy at launch.
So many of my questions here have to do with Android 5.0's stability and speed, and what the tablet can do with its flashy Nvidia K1 processor. The Nexus 9 is the second tablet to use the K1 after the Nvidia Shield Tablet, and the Shield Tablet's performance was excellent, especially its gaming performance. The tablet I was handling, unfortunately, had not-ready-for-primetime software - some built-in apps were just stubs, debugging tools were still visible, and when I ran a browser benchmark, the results didn't seem valid.
On the surface, at least, Lollipop looks new, shiny, and gorgeous. The high-res icons have a polished sheen to them, and Google has moved even more aggressively towards abstraction. Some of those design choices gave me very mixed feelings - the Lollipop keyboard, for instance, with its odd gray space key. But it's bold, that's for sure.
In 15 minutes with a pre-release device, you can really only start to figure out if it feels cheap. The Nexus 9 doesn't, and I wouldn't expect an HTC device to feel cheap. The OS will have to do the heavy lifting of making the Nexus 9 compelling, though. There are already some very good Android tablets on the market - the Shield Tablet and the Galaxy Tab S are both excellent devices. Lollipop will have to cruise with smooth elegance on this tablet to make its mark.