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I’ve always been a fan of Google Inc.’s Nexus line of products because of their relatively low price tag.

With the Nexus 6, and to some extent the Nexus 9, Google has ditched this strategy in favour of raising the price tag of Nexus devices and, in theory, offering consumers a higher-end product. It’s an interesting move that could eventually end up backfiring on the tech giant, but Google has its sights set on Apple’s premium consumer market share and this is how the company intends to eat away at it.

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So is Google’s mid-sized option and successor to the Nexus 7 and the Nexus 10 worth the device’s somewhat hefty price tag that starts at $429.99?

To begin, the HTC-manufactured Nexus 9 is one of the first Android devices to run Google’s new, much-improved and significantly more colourful operating system, Android 5.0 Lollipop.

Although navigating Android 5.0’s almost completely revamped operating system takes some getting used to, I’m a big fan of Lollipop, particularly how it makes jumping between apps much easier and its overall colourful look. Although it is important to point out not all apps work perfectly on Lollipop yet and it might take some developers a few months to update their apps to take advantage of Android 5.0. However, in general, Lollipop is a significant improvement over KitKat 4.4.