Google may have just given us a glimpse of the Nexus 9

Nexus 9
We'd give just about anything for an HTC One tablet and this might come pretty close

While the Nexus 9 might not make a physical debut at Google I/O it's possible that Google has let slip a render of the slate.

An image of a mystery tablet has been tucked away in a document detailing Android L alongside a Nexus 5 and a Chromebook.

It's the wrong shape to be the current Nexus 10 and going by its size relative to the Nexus 5 it's too big to be the Nexus 7, not to mention a few other differences, such as the position of the front-facing camera and the presence of a front-facing speaker.

Nexus 9 render

Now this could of course just be a generic slate, rather than a real thing, but it seems odd that Google would render a fake device when it has real tablets it could be using.

Then there's that front-facing speaker. If there's one company that likes putting speakers on the front of things it's HTC. Normally there'd be two of them not one, but there may well be two here as the other edge is obscured by the Nexus 5.

The Nexus One? Oh, wait, we've had that already

HTC is relevant because recent reports claim that not only is the Nexus 9 a thing but that HTC built it, so we'd say there's a good chance that this is the Nexus 9, or at least a render of it.

The rumoured specs include an 8.9 inch 2048 x 1440 display, an NVIDIA Tegra K1 64-bit processor, 2GB of RAM, stereo front-facing speakers, up to 32GB of storage, an 8MP rear camera and a 3MP front-facing one.

It's not clear when the slate will launch but it's looking increasingly like a real thing. Hopefully HTC's return to the tablet market will be worth the wait.

James Rogerson

James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.