The sales of tablets is still going strong in early 2015, and two devices are competing to get the attention of consumers who are searching to find the ideal portable tablet for their specific needs. Two of the most popular options are Apple's iPad Mini 3 and the Nexus 9 from Google. 

Based on looks alone, the Nexus 9 tablet is slightly bigger than the third generation device from the iPad mini product line. However, it is hard to distinguish if one is better than the other according to its external features since consumers have varied expectations from both products. 

Here is a detailed comparison between the two tablets in the market today:

Body and Display

The 7.9-inch LED-backlit IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen of the iPad mini 3 comes with 200 x 134.7 x 7.5 mm body and weighs 331 grams for its Wi-Fi version and 341 grams for the 3G/LTE variety. On the other hand, the HTC-manufactured Nexus 9 is slightly bigger, coming with an 8.9-inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen and encased in a 228.2 x 153.7 x 8 mm body that weighs 425 grams for the WiFi version and 436 grams for the 3g/LTE model. 

Both screens of these devices have a 1536 x 2048 pixel resolution.

Under the hood

The iPad mini 3 is equipped with the Apple A7 chipset with dual-core 1.3 GHz Cyclone processor and PowerVR G6430 GPU. It runs using the iOS 8.1 but can be upgraded to iOS 8.1.2 when it is released by the Cupertino company. Meanwhile, the Google-owned Nexus 9 has an Nvidia Tegra K1 chipset and dual-core 2.3 GHz Denver processor with Kepler DX1. It comes with the Android 5.0 Lollipop operating system. 

Memory

The iPad mini 3 comes in 16 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB varieties with 1 GB RAM DDR3, while the Nexus 9 has 16 GB and 32 GB versions with 2 GB RAM. 

Camera 

The third generation iPad mini comes with a 5-megapixel primary shooter and a 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera for selfie and video calling functions, while the Nexus 9 has an 8-megapixel primary rear camera and a 1.6-megapixel front-facing cam.