[Nexus 9 General] nigelhealy:
Calm down children or you both will be put into the naughty corner and no supper before bed.

MY 1st tablet was N7 2012 $199, really good in at the time the phones were about 4.4". Once phones got to 5"-5.5" I found my N7 not used much and I moved upto a LG Gpad 8.3 for $199 which I felt a perfect balance of one-handed, pocketable and big enough relative to phone. I found the phone was getting all the action and the tablet was for travel and in-bed when I didn't want my Thinkpad to be wiring brightly. So I've concluded the sweetspot of tablets is in that 8" type size, 16:9 or 16:10, but still 3rd place behind a phone and a laptop. So I was perfectly happy at that point. Then my mom wanted a computer and liked my tablet so I gave her my Gpad 8.3 and at that same time a sale happened for the N9 LTE for $340 so I thought LTE also might be handy at times as a diversity from phone, so that's how I got my N9.

Currently I have a Chrombook 13" $300 + 64GB SD, a 5.5" Phone $350 64GB and the N9 LTE $340 32GB. I keep my phone on ATT and my tablet on T-Mobile, for some diversity of signal. The phone is always with me and so has all my apps and is my device I will always have to fall back onto to do anything when moving. When stationary my Chromebook is the productivity device, it has everything I'd want in capabilities with true multitasking big screen big full keyboard, good speakers and lasts about 8-11 hours battery real usage. The tablet then is that 3rd device for when traveling and the situation doesn't allow the roominess of a laptop.

Given tablets are the 3rd device, not as always-with like a phone and not as general-useful as a laptop, now come on guys, is it worth spending much $ on one? The $340 for LTE model, well relatively speaking for larger tablets, that is a fair price but given my 5.5" phone was $350 and my laptop $300, the 3rd most useful device should really be like $200, like the Nexus 7 were. There's no way any MRR $600+ Apple tablet is able to remotely justify its value, anyone who does is just brainwashed into buying one then tries to retrofit in an opinion to match. I suspect the Apple iPad brainwashing begins with the iPhone, yikes with tax a larger storage one is not far off $1000, so once you got that truly stupid you're only moderately stupid to pay for an iPad. This is not an anti-Apple product issue, it is just an anti-price issue. Just like the newest Pixel C Android tablet is simply not worth its $499, and the Nexus 9 at launch was not worth its $599.

The N9 at the $340 with LTE is borderline at most justifiable value, but at least its bordeline justifiable. It is still the least useful type of device.

So I'm going to be doing a few weeks travel shortly, and not so much with my phone+Chromebook so much it will be more phone+tablet, so I've flashed the current stock ROM for N9 and the lag was so bad the tablet felt like it was nearly physically broke, I'd press something and wait ...1....2 seconds. So then I flashed CM13 and all lag gone, it is nippy fast. I just don't like CM13, not that its bad its just too different, so I'm going to try PureNexus Layers next. I'm doing a full TWRP backup each time so I can go back and try each in turn within an hour or so apart, then decide which to stick with before I stop flashing and need to move with reliable fast devices.

The N9 is not the worst tablet ever, it is at real street prices a borderline reasonable tablet, and actually the best of a bad concept. With customisation you can get it quite good.

Battery life. Cough $20-$30 can fix that. E.g.