The Google Nexus 9 Review
by Joshua Ho & Ryan Smith on February 4, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- HTC
- Project Denver
- Android
- Mobile
- NVIDIA
- Nexus 9
- Lollipop
- Android 5.0
WiFi Performance
On most tablets, WiFi performance is perhaps one of the most crucial parts of the experience as WiFi is often the primary method of connectivity. Without working WiFi, a tablet is basically useless as the only alternative is either cellular (which is quite rare on most tablets) or Ethernet over USB-OTG, which destroys most of the value of a mobile device.
In the case of the Nexus 9, we see that HTC has fitted this device with a BCM4354 WiFi module to enable two spatial stream 802.11ac. Interestingly, there is some evidence to suggest that HTC has also adopted Cypress Semiconductor’s CapSense controller to enable antenna tuning for the WiFi antennas. However, it’s probable that this solution is only for HTC devices without a Qualcomm Gobi modem as we’ve seen the use of the QFE15xx antenna tuner in previous HTC products. In order to test how the Nexus 9’s WiFi solution performs, we turn to iperf on Android to test throughput across the network, and utilize Asus’ RT-AC68U router to ensure that the device under test will be able to reach maximum performance.
The Nexus 9's WiFi solution performs about as well as one might expect from a BCM4354 solution. For the most part I haven't noticed any reception issues, even when touching/detuning the WiFi antennas.
GNSS
While most of the GNSS solutions that we’ve looked at this year use Qualcomm’s GPSOne/IZat due to the presence of a Qualcomm Gobi Modem, the same isn’t true for the Nexus 9. Instead, Broadcom’s BCM4752 is used here. While this shouldn’t have a massive impact on the speed with which first lock is acquired, in practice Qualcomm’s solution is noticeably faster here as the modem can often provide data to make for a hot fix. At any rate, the Nexus 9 does perform acceptably in this regard. I don’t see any major issues with location performance, although it does seem that the GPS tends to report lower accuracy levels than the Qualcomm solutions that I'm used to. Other than this, the GNSS solution is quite usable.
Misc
While we don't have a proper audio quality test yet, it's clear that the audio codec used is the same Realtek RT5677 codec that we saw in the SHIELD Tablet. Outside of the code, we also see an RT5506 2.55V amp on the 3.5mm jack, along with two NXP TFA9895 amps on the speakers, which are quite good due to their front-facing placement. In practice I don't really see much issue with loudness or quality here, as the speakers can get even louder than the M8 in some situations. We also see a Broadcom BCM2079x NFC chip, which means HCE is fully supported out of the box. Interestingly, the VCM controller is exposed to the OS and is said to be a Texas Instruments DRV201 chip.
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seanleeforever - Wednesday, February 4, 2015 - link
2nd that.I am not here to read about how fast the tablet is or how nice it looks. i am here for in depth content about the chip. would it be nice that this content was available since the release of the product? absolutely, but given the resource it would either be a brief review that is going to be the same as review you can find from hundred of other websites, or late but in depth.
honestly i think anand should be targeting at more tech oriented contents that's few but in depth, and leave the quick/dirty review for other websites.
superb job.
WaitingForNehalem - Wednesday, February 4, 2015 - link
Yeah but who cares about tablets??!! I don't come to Anandtech to read about budget tablets, or SFF PCs, or more smartphones. The Denver coverage was not even that in depth TBH, just commentary on the NVidia slides. I have a EE degree and some of the previous write ups were so in depth they could be class material. This one isn't which is fine but I don't think it excuses how late it came out. The enthusiast market is growing and you should be targeting that demographic as you previously have, not catering to the mainstream like hundreds of sites already do.retrospooty - Wednesday, February 4, 2015 - link
The enthusiast market is growing ? What with CPU's not really getting, or needing to be any faster for several years now, and a standard mid range quad core i5 (non-overclocked) being WAY more than powerful enough to run 99.9% of anything out there, how is the enthusiast market is growing? Most enthusiasts I know don't even bother any more... There just isnt a need. Any basic PC is great these days.WaitingForNehalem - Wednesday, February 4, 2015 - link
I totally agree with you. That doesn't change the fact that the market is growing as more users are adopting gaming PCs. Enthusiasts now actually command a sizable portion of desktops sold. Intel's Devil's Canyon was in response to that.retrospooty - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link
OK, I get what you mean.I guess I am still in a mind set where a PC "enthusiast" is your overclocker, tweaker, buying the latest and fastest of everything to eek out that extra few frames per second.
Today, a mid range quad core i5 from 3 years ago and a decent mid-high range card runs any game quite nicely.
FunBunny2 - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link
There was a time, readers may be too young to have been there, when there was a Wintel monopoly: M$ needed faster chips to run ever more bloated Windoze and Intel needed a cycle-sink to soak up the increase in cycles that evolving chips provided. Now, we're near (or at?) the limits of single-threaded performance, and still haven't found a way to use multi-processor/core chips in individual applications. There just aren't a) many embarrassingly parallel problems and b) algorithms to turn single-threaded problems into parallel code. I mean, the big deal these days is 4K displays? It looks prettier, to some eyes, but doesn't change the functionality of an application (medical and such excepted, possibly).Does anyone really need an i7 to surf the innterTubes for neater porn?
nico_mach - Friday, February 6, 2015 - link
I think the chip coverage was superb, I don't have an EE degree and I'm pretty sure that's what the website is steered towards. And I still think I got it.It's fascinating the number of layers involved in this Android tablet, and speaks to why Apple can optimize so much better. There's the chip->NVIDIA chip optimizer->executable code->Dalvik compiler/runtime->dalvik code. I mean, when the lags are encountered, that's twice as many suspects to investigate.
I still think that the review is a little harsh on Denver. It's hitting the right performance envelope at the right price. While it's an mildly inefficient design, clearly NVIDIA is pricing it accordingly, and that might be a function of moving some of the optimization work to software. And that's work that Apple and MS do all the time - Apple much more successfully, obviously. There's a real gap in knowledge of how efficient Apple's chips are vs how optimized the software/hardware pairing is.
dakishimesan - Wednesday, February 4, 2015 - link
I have no interest in tablets, but the deep dive on Denver was a fascinating read, and still completely relevant even if the product is a few months old. Thanks for the great review.Sindarin - Wednesday, February 4, 2015 - link
...can I offer you a cup of hot chicken soup laddy? .....maybe some vicks vapor rub? lol! c'mon dude! we're all sick(vaca) in December!hahmed330 - Wednesday, February 4, 2015 - link
Hi, outstanding article with incredible attention to detail... Do you think its possible to run Dynamic Code Optimizer on per say 2 or maybe even 4 small cpu cores dedicated to doing all the software OoOE functions instead of using time slicing? (A53s or just some XYZ narrow cores for a potential 2+2 or 4+4 or maybe even 8+8)Also whats the die size of a denver core in comparison to a enhanced cyclone core?? That is where a lot of gains are possible potentially 30%-50%..