HTC stops making the Nexus 9; will Nexus tablets ever return?

It used to be that Google's Nexus lineup represented both a smartphone option, as well as a tablet option – sometimes, even tablets of multiple sizes. But while the smartphone side of the Nexus family has matured from a single device a year to a choice between a more petite handset and a full-blow phablet, the tablet offerings have dried up. Sure, we have the Pixel C now, but that's not strictly speaking a Nexus model. And when Google removed 2014's Nexus 9 from the Google Store late last month, it looked like the era of the Nexus tablet was just about to close. Now the other shoe has dropped, with HTC itself confirming that after over a year and a half, the company has finally reached the end of Nexus 9 production.

Even with Google stopping its own Nexus 9 sales, HTC continued to make the tablet available – and still does to this day.

But what HTC has now confirmed is that production for the Nexus 9 has come to its inevitable end. While the manufacturer will continue to sell what stock it has available, once those models are gone, your chances for buying a factory-new Nexus 9 go up in smoke.

We know: there are plenty of much modern tablets out there these days – Google's own Pixel C included. But for Android fans who kept a special place in their heart for Nexus devices, this conclusion (at least for now) of the Nexus tablet story is still a melancholy chapter in the saga of Google's relationship with mobile hardware.


source: CNET