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September 24, 2014

HTC Selected as Partner for Google Nexus 9 Tablet

Sources for the Wall Street Journal confirmed today the rumor floating around all summer that HTC will be producing the Google Nexus 9 tablet, codenamed “Babel.” This will be HTC’s only tablet other than the largely unsuccessful Flyer in 2011.

HTC has not worked with Google since the Nexus One smartphone in 2010, and this decision seems a bit odd at first glance especially considering HTC’s inexperience with tablets and the fact that the last one (Nexus 10) was made by Samsung.

But, as WSJ sources say, “Google’s decision to pick HTC reflects the software giant’s long-standing philosophy of building a broad base of partners. Google likes to change its partners from device to device to avoid any one manufacturer gaining a monopoly.”

In addition, HTC has enjoyed critical success with its smartphone offerings over the past two years, with the HTC One M7 and HTC One M8 achieving top-tier ratings in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Despite this, the company has often lost out on sales to the deep pockets and entrenched popularity of its rival Samsung. Google itself is wary of Samsung and the large amount of power it has among Android device makers, presumably prompting the new partnership.

The only other information we have about the upcoming tablet was discovered due to a careless namedrop in a patent lawsuit filed by Nvidia against Qualcomm and Samsung. A line from the lawsuit read, “the HTC Nexus 9, expected in the third quarter of 2014, is also expected to use the Tegra K1.” NVIDIA's 64-bit “Denver” core variant of the Tegra K1 is a very powerful processor that will undoubtedly give the tablet all the power it needs.

Speculators believe the Nexus 9 will be officially announced alongside the full public release of Google’s major operating system update, called Android L. The OS is also expected to be unveiled in the fall of 2014, setting the stage for what will surely be a massive event for Google and HTC fans.




Edited by Maurice Nagle


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