HTC Nexus 9 review: Game on

Photos

Google Photos is the default gallery app in Android 5.0 Lollipop. Upon opening the app you'll see two tabs - one for all photos and another one for highlights. Above those two tabs you will find shortcuts for settings and bulk selection.

Photos gallery app

You can view photos synced to your Google cloud, or images stored only on your device. Local photos are separated depending on their source (e.g. camera or screenshots).

Browsing photos

Viewing a single photo gives you a number of options. You can share it, set it as wallpaper or contact photo, or edit it. The built-in Photos editor is incredibly powerful - it gives you limitless options and filters to tweak your images.

Viewing a single photo • the built-in image editor

Overall, Photos is an incredibly capable app to handle all your images. It is well laid-out and easy to use.

Video player remains basic

The video player in the Android 5.0 Lollipop is somewhat of an afterthought - there is no dedicated app, so you will have to seek out you videos via the Photos app.

The video player is basic

Supported codecs include H.263, H.264 AVC, MPEG-4 SP, and VP8. The app will play most major file formats, though serious video fans should certainly seek out a more capable solution from the Google Play store.

Google Play Music

Google Play Music is the default player for your tunes out of the box. The app has been treated to the new material design, though it functionality remains unchanged - it can play your local files, as well as stream music from the cloud.

Google Play Music

You can tweak the sound via the built-in equalizer. There are dedicated toggles for surround sound and bass.

EQ settings

The Now Playing screen uses the song album art and gives you a quick shortcut to the rest of the artist's songs along with the play controls. While the player is working, the entire lockscreen features the album art and track info for the current song along with dedicated playback controls. The notification area also lets you control the playback via an expandable notification.

Google will give you three months of free subscription to its music streaming service. The latter is one of the most capable around and certainly worth a try.

Best-in-class audio output

If there's one thing you can trust HTC with, it's creating devices with excellent audio output. The Nexus 9 made the active external amplifier part of our test look like a piece of cake, matching perfectly clean output with the loudest volume we've seen for a few years now.

The stereo crosstalk degradation when you plug in a pair of headphones is minor and it's the only affected reading, meaning we get an equally impressive performance here. There's no shortage of tablets to deliver audiophile-grade audio output, but if you want the best you will have to side with the Nexus 9.

Check out the table and see for yourself.