Nexus 6 Smartphone and Nexus 9 Tablet Keep Google in the Mobile Game

By Don Reisinger

Don’t worry about carrier support when it comes to the Nexus 6. The device, which is available through the Google Play store for a starting price of $649 outside of a contract, will work on all four major U.S. carriers—AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and Sprint. In addition, the handset will be available to US Cellular customers. According to Google, availability will vary by carrier and retailer.

Following all previous Nexus devices, the Nexus 9 tablet is running the standard build of Android. This time around, it’s Android 5.0 (Lollipop). The operating system comes with better performance, enhanced notifications handling, battery-saving features and more. Google says that the Nexus 9 has been optimized to take full advantage of Android 5.0.

No surprise here, but the Nexus 6 comes with the standard build of Android 5.0 (Lollipop), too. That means that the same battery-saving features, improved performance and new Material Design have come to the device. Lollipop is the new gold standard for Android, and since this is a Nexus product, it’s no surprise no changes have been made to the operating system experience.

The Nexus 9 likely won’t break any world records in terms of beautiful design, but it’s by no means ugly. The tablet has a black face and a thin bezel on either side. In addition, it comes in the customer’s choice of a white, black or gold back plate. One other important design note: The device comes with brushed metal sides.

It’s hard to find much fault in the Nexus 6’s specs. The handset comes with a 6-inch screen that has a 2,560-by-1,440-pixel display. The phone’s processor is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805, and it has the Adreno 420 GPU. Customers can choose between a 32GB or 64GB version.

Since it’s running the standard Android Lollipop build, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Google services are all over the tablet’s software. Owners will find Gmail, Google Maps, the Google Play marketplace, Google’s music services and much more. The Nexus devices help Google promote its myriad services and get customers invested in them all.

The Nexus might not be a flagship device compared with the highest of the high end, like the Galaxy Note 4, but it’s certainly getting there. The smartphone has a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera with optical image stabilization and other key features that make it work well in low light. The front-facing camera is a 2-megapixel option.

The Nexus 9 is designed to take aim at the Microsoft Surface. Google has unveiled a magnetically attached keyboard that can be attached to the Nexus 9 and that allows for typing at a wide range of angles. While the add-on is sold separately, when it’s attached, it looks surprisingly similar to Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3 slate.

One of the nice things about getting a Nexus device is that consumers can be assured that it’s optimized to work with Android. That’s probably why the device’s 3,220mAh battery can get up to 6 hours of use in only 15 minutes of charging. Android Lollipop has been optimized for better wireless charging, and the hardware itself has been optimized to use that feature. All of that translates to getting more battery life on a single charge. In fact, users can get more than 24 hours of use on a single charge.

The Google Nexus 9 will be available to customers for between $399 and $479, depending on the version they choose. The cheaper option is for 16GB of onboard storage, while 32GB of data bumps the price. As of this writing, the Nexus 9 is available for preorder and will leave Google’s warehouse in one to two business days.