Nexus 9

[Consignia]

A few days ago, Google announced the Nexus 9. It looks pretty nifty spec-wise.



I pre-ordered one, as my first generation Nexus 7 is all scratched up and I felt like I could do with a replacement. However, on further mulling it over, I'm thinking of canceling it. There's too much Apple aping for my liking, such as the 4:3 ratio screen[nb]a particular bugbear for me since I mostly use it for video.[/nb], and price, well £320 is a lot for replacing something that was bought for £180. I do use my tablet a lot, so it needs to be something I'm comfortable with, so I'm not sure I should replace it with something bigger, heavier and more expensive.

I dunno. What does everyone else reckon to it?

[MojoJojo]

I don't know about the Nexus 9, but I have been looking at the Tesco Hudl 2 - 8 inch, £135 but clubcard vouchers count double towards the cost (so you only need £60 odd worth of vouchers). The only thing putting me off is it's based on a Intel Atom chip and I don't know how that will effect app compatibility, especially with games. I've been unable to find out if it will run Xcom, for example.

[Ignatius_S]

I don't know about the Nexus 9, but I have been looking at the Tesco Hudl 2 - 8 inch, £135 but clubcard vouchers count double towards the cost (so you only need £60 odd worth of vouchers). The only thing putting me off is it's based on a Intel Atom chip and I don't know how that will effect app compatibility, especially with games. I've been unable to find out if it will run Xcom, for example.

Personally, I would [not - sorry!] be worried about app compatibility – although there was some dispute about this not so long ago, this seemed more about marketing malarkey than technology. Intel put forward information claiming excellent app support and I don't recall anything that cast doubt on this. Certainly when I looked at the Hudl 2 reviews, people said how good the performance is.

Battery life is more of an issue with the Atom and this is something that I think all Hudl 2 reviewers have pointed to. That's the biggest weakness but for around the home, it's a offers a huge bang for your buck. FWIW, I'm not in the market for one, but I haven't been half tempted by what I read and the price!

[MojoJojo]

Personally, I would be worried about app compatibility – although there was some dispute about this not so long ago, this seemed more about marketing malarkey than technology. Intel put forward information claiming excellent app support and I don't recall anything that cast doubt on this. Certainly when I looked at the Hudl 2 reviews, people said how good the performance is.

Do you mean you wouldn't be worried? Some of the reviews did mention it but said they hadn't run into any problems.

Battery life is more of an issue with the Atom and this is something that I think all Hudl 2 reviewers have pointed to. That's the biggest weakness but for around the home, it's a offers a huge bang for your buck. FWIW, I'm not in the market for one, but I haven't been half tempted by what I read and the price!

All reviews bar that Register one - they just did a looping video test which is obviously a shit way to test because that will all hardware accelerated to buggery. I am definitely tempted, the SD card and HDMI socket are both useful additions over my first gen Nexus 7, ignoring everything else.

[Ignatius_S]

Do you mean you wouldn't be worried? Some of the reviews did mention it but said they hadn't run into any problems...

Sorry – that's exactly what I meant!

...All reviews bar that Register one - they just did a looping video test which is obviously a shit way to test because that will all hardware accelerated to buggery. I am definitely tempted, the SD card and HDMI socket are both useful additions over my first gen Nexus 7, ignoring everything else.

In terms of testing battery life, I think quite a few went for how long with video play – so hardly in-depth! However, one that I read did mention that the battery did decease quite quickly when playing one or two games.
Also, the increased RAM (I think) should give a boost.

[Paaaaul]

I've got me a Hudl 2. So far it feels better in pretty much every way than the first gen Nexus 7 it replaced, except for battery life which is probably a couple of hours shorter.

[Paaaaul]

I've got me a Hudl 2. So far it feels better in pretty much every way than the first gen Nexus 7 it replaced, except for battery life which is probably a couple of hours shorter.

...and Sky Go won't run on it.