[Nexus 9 General] wingdo:
I have a couple thoughts here. Let me start out by saying I am a tablet junkie and I currently have 4 at my house / at work. nVidia Shield Tablet, Tab S 10.5, Note Pro 12.2 and the Nexus 9.

While the three 16:9 / 16:10 tablets are all nice for watching movies, other than that I do not find the aspect ratio to be useful. Since I've perhaps watched 5 total hours of movies on my tablets (although I do watch YouTube a lot), I don't consider movie / video watching to be the primary use for a tablet for me. For movies I prefer my 60" TV, and for youtube it doesn't bother me to watch a five minute anything with bars on the top and bottom when needed. But I will give you that *video* consumption is best at this aspect ratio. That said, the N9 and nVidia Shield Tablet are the same basic width except with different aspect ratios and movie content gives you a bit more screen size on the N9. Not much more, but a bit more. So to me there is nothing gained by moving "down" to the Shield Tablet just so the aspect ratio is the same.

I however, use my tablet for productivity and gaming. All of my medical books are either in Adobe DRM format which I use Mantano Reader Premium for, or Kindle format. Since these are all technical books with pictures, graphs, tables etc, none "resize". They are all presented in US book format which is 4:3. When viewing the same book in the same app on my Tab S 10.5 and the Nexus 9 the two screens present the material at the same exact size on screen, the 10.5 (or any 16:9 tablet) displays the book with black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. So while the N9 is considerably smaller and more comfortable to hold in portrait mode for long periods of time, it shows the book at the same size as the 10.5 does. Big win for the N9. For Word documents, and Excel spreadsheets the N9 shows more useful data with the on screen keyboard up. The nVidia Shield Tablet is the same width as the N9 but due to its 16:9 (or 16:10) format shows very little of any document including email when the keyboard is showing. It's basically useless for productivity. Sorry but for real productivity apps 4:3 is just better for me and the apps I use. While 16:10 may work great for books outside the US here where I live and where I work and use the tablet, this content works best in 4:3. Using the on screen keyboard in landscape mode is easy on the N9, the center keys are a stretch of your thumbs when holding the tablet.

Games are not an issue at all on the N9. RR3, DH5, Order and Chaos, Hearthstone and Darkness Reborn are the games I play; and all play just fine and dandy on the N9.

I bought the N9 specifically for the 4:3 aspect ratio as have many others. I know it does not work best for you, but does EVERY Android tablet made have to suit you? Can't those of us who prefer 4:3 actually get a well specced Android tablet? Everyone I work around uses iPads as they are made for reading books, writing documents etc in the US. My screen has always had tons of useless space. Finally one decent 4:3 tablet comes around and I bought it as soon as I learned it's 4:3. Sadly right now it's the only nicely spec'd 4:3 Android tablet as the new Samsung A series is low end specs.

Seriously, 4:3 works for some people better than what you want.