The Apple logo Is Pictured Inside The Newly Opened Omotesando Apple Store
The Apple logo is pictured inside the newly opened Omotesando Apple store at a shopping district in Tokyo in this file photo taken June 26, 2014. Reuters/YUYA SHINO

Consumers have seen the release of new tablets from Google and Apple. Google's Nexus 9 and Apple's iPad Air 2 have been this year's major rivals when it comes to design, performance and usefulness in accomplishing all sorts of tasks. For people who cannot decide on which is the better tablet, it would be helpful to note the following comparisons made between the new Nexus and the new iPad.

Design

The Nexus 9 has an entirely different look compared to the Nexus 10 or even the Nexus 7. On the other hand, the iPad Air 2 looks almost the same to its predecessor only with a few upgrades.

According to a review by Phone Arena, Google's tablet has a plastic body that measures 8.98x6.05x0.31 inches and weighs 0.94 pounds, while Apple's tablet that has an aluminum unibody comes at 9.4x6.6x0.24 inches and weighs 0.96 pounds. The iPad Air 2 sports a 9.7-inch Retina display which is larger than the 8.9-inch IPS LCD screen of Nexus 9. But resolution wise, both tablets come with 2048x1536 pixels.

Features

Nexus 9 is powered by the NVIDIA Tegra K1 dual processor and uses the Android 5.0 Lollipop as its platform. Meanwhile, the iPad Air 2 is equipped with the Apple A8X processor and runs on iOS8. The Nexus tablet has a 32GB internal storage capacity and could be expanded with a microUSB slot, while the new iPad is available from 16GB to 128GB variants.

Both tablets have an 8MP main camera but show slight difference when it comes to its front facing camera. Nexus 9's front camera is slightly better at 1.6MP compared to the iPad Air 2's 1.2MP.

In addition, the Nexus 9 has a multi-user account option also known as the "guest mode" or "kids mode" where users can set-up multiple accounts on the device. Apple on the contrary doesn't have this kind of safety feature, Gottabemobile reports.

Google's Nexus 9 starts at $399 for the 16GB version, $479 for the 32GB and $599 for the recently released 32GB 4G LTE variant. Apple's iPad Air 2 starts at $499 and goes up to $829 if users prefer more storage and the 4G LTE connectivity.