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With HTC’s awesome track record in the area of build quality over the past couple of years and the fact that the Nexus 9 is a $400 tablet, you’d expect a device to be pristine, clean and crafted to near perfection out of the box, right? Well, one user had no such luck — his Nexus 9 unit came out of the factory looking like poorly assembled demo unit.
Reddit user osloboy documented his device’s condition, noting that the edges were rough as if it were being used for a couple of years’ time. Indeed, the photos he posted (which you can see above and below) do show some concerning build issues.
We’re willing to strike this off as a one-off occurrence as this is the only report we’ve seen of shoddy build quality for the Nexus 9. We’re not sure what happened at the quality assurance portion of the assembly process, but humans are capable of missing this sort of stuff and, unfortunately for osloboy, this unit was thrown into a box without second thought. Let’s hope we don’t see many more of these reports as more users begin to receive their devices in the days and weeks to come. How is your Nexus 9 holding up?
I like to believe I’m fairly observant, but I’m going to be giving mine another look tonight. I really think I looked over it pretty closely though after the AP “glass quarter full” review of the N9.
Wow. Hence the half-off fire sale.
Only selling 100 for half off hardly qualifies as a fire sale.
Build quality of mine is fine although the materials leave something to be desired.The biggest problem is the lag. WTF, can’t believe I gave up a Galaxy Tab pro 8.4 for this.
Page turns are good, but about 25% of the time opening apps is painfully slow. Best of all for me is the screen. Its sharp and bright without the over the top saturation of the Tab pro.
Apps not all optimized for ART?
That’s what I was thinking, were dealing with a new runtime environment now.
I’ve been running ART for 8 months and haven’t had too many problems. I think one app was temporarily not compatible. The app developers have had plenty of time.
I think the software needs optimization, which it will get. It’s a shame it was released in this sate, though.
Hmm, so you’re saying TouchWiz running on the 1.5 yr old Snapdragon 800 chipset is more responsive than stock Android running on one of, if not the single fastest chipset on the market, which also has 21% fewer pixels to push? Nice! Pretty interesting news for all the TouchWiz haters out there.
What a sh*tshow this tablet has become.
I’m on my way to bestbuy to buy so i’m crossing the fingers.To late no more in stock in my area.
This tablet should cost 299 tops.
Mine wasn’t bad, but I saw no sign of HTC’s build quality anywhere. Honestly my 2013 N7 felt tighter and more solid.
I’m suspicious of the Reddit post driving this article. I’ve been using my N9 since I picked it up from Best Buy on Tuesday. The build quality seems clean and tight, the front-facing speakers are great, and it’s lightning fast (google futuremark mobile devices). I love mine, even at the current price point.
I was waiting for this Nexus to come out but I might end up buying an older model.
It also does not have very good cooling built in, the Shield Tablet scores significantly higher all across the board with performance because the N9 heats up and throttles even though I have never seen the Shield Tab throttle with the same GPU.
Awesome track record? Lmao
Another case of confusing build quality with preemium materials.
Give it to me I’ll take it
The M8 failed the bend test faster than every other phone….I dont know what people expect. It seems like HTC was trying to be proactive on getting these out to the masses unlike Motorola with the Nexus. Gotta lose out on SOMETHING. Looks like build quality is what they thought they could take a hit on. Shame.
That’s BS. I seen multiple vids, m8 did no such thing
since when does consumer reports lie?? haha
Why don’t you post a link or video to back this up.
here ya go dude, get over yourself for a minute so you can read :) took LESS weight to pend than any other phone. Including the Iphone.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/09/consumer-reports-tests-iphone-6-bendgate/index.htm
It deformed at exactly the same weight as the iphone 6. How is that quicker?
Does this mean that the build quality of the iPhone 5 is better than the iPhone 6? I would assume the iPhone 6 bends easier because it’s thinner. Maybe the material they used is more malleable. What exactly deems good quality? I’d still say the M8 is a good quality phone, and the iPhone 6. It looks nice and sleek. =.P
But then it looks like I’m talking about design and not the actual quality. Hmm…
Shoot , since non-real consumers of one piece of merchandise claim to own something, when they really own something else, and they talk down about the item they lied to about owning and at the end mentions a product they support to try to convince others to look into that other product. Duuuuh, and haha
…or one user dropped his tablet, completely screwed it up, and took to bloggers to publish his story to press the manufacturer to send him a new one.
strong point…
That’s possible. It would likely show uneven impact damage and affect more than the edge though.
I got mine last night and spend a good 5 hours setting it up and playing around with all types of apps. So far it is great. Tight build, smooth as butter performance.
Parenthetically, I think the list price was designed to enable deep discounting in the pre-holiday sales. Note that HTC already discounted it briefly this week. At list price, I think it’s overpriced. At anticipated sale prices, I think it will be competitive.
Google won’t give up the n9 they will have Htc fix the problems and all will be well.The funny thing for the last 3 day a few best buy in my area had them in stock and today they all disappeared.
Well, HTC’s having some difficulties as Google is telling them to speed up the production.
Mine is a POS. Back flexes and makes a popping sound, horrible light bleeding, overheats after just a few mins of use, battery lost 20% overnight on wifi, hitting the home key often causes black screen for over a second… No need to go on, this thing is going back asap.
Edit: here a video of the popping noise from the back panel: http://youtu.be/PWe-RACj_j4
i had same issues. it once got so hot that it made a loud clicking noise for 30 seconds and then rebooted itself. when i went to erase and reset to send back to amazon, it froze up 3 times! i had to hard reboot it 3 times! i finally manually deleted all my apps and cache and only then did it reset to factory. so i ordered a nexus 7 32 gb. that’ll hold me for 2 yrs.
Mine makes that popping sound in the same spot. Also notice a lot of battery loss overnight. Long delay on hitting home button & sometimes goes black when pressed. All could probly be fixed with update except for the back. But the popping noise doesn’t bother me cuz it only really does it when I push down on that spot with a little pressure. Still a crazy fast & smooth tablet. And the screen is very nice. I’m pleased.
My suspicion is someone took it home to test drive then later hid the fact by throwing it in a box.
After a few days hands on, I can’t express how extremely pleased I am with my Nexus 9 and Android 5. The only disappointments have been a few apps I use regularly are not Lollipop ready. Those apps have been permanently replaced. If you don’t have a Nexus 9, I feel sorry for you. Srsly!
Im hoping for a Nexus 10 2015
I hate to say it but i’ve had horrible experience with most android tablets. I will be settling with an ipad mini 2. oh well. Hopefully this is a rare occurrence. I still love my android phone though
No Issues here
The edges on mine were okay but there was a lot of dust on the tablet including the screen itself. There was a single sheet of plastic wrapped around the front and back of the tablet but it wasn’t making an airtight seal with the screen like every other electronic I have seen. If it wasn’t for the blue label on the white box, I would have thought it was opened after it left the factory. My N9 has moderate bleeding and the back cover is significantly bent in on the left and out on the right making it uncomfortable to hold. I kept it for a couple of days because I really wanted to like it, but tablets half the price are built better.
That doesn’t even look like a Nexus 9. Looks more like an m8.