Nvidia delivers the best Android tablet this side of a Nexus. In November, the Google-branded HTC Nexus 9 arrived in a spanking-new Lollipop-shaped cradle, giving Google a chance to reaffirm that, hey, you want to own an Android tablet. But things didn't quite work out that way. The Lollipop OS update wasn't the problem; rather, Nexus 9's mix of high price, unremarkable hardware, and so-so performance added up to something decidedly less than a 'statement? device, like Nexus models past, and hopes for Android's iPad killer faded quickly.

Since then, Lollipop has spread pretty far and wide on newer hardware models, but one of the very first to get the official OS upgrade treatment was an unexpected choice: the Nvidia Shield Tablet.