Shall I wait for new Nexus or buy the old one?

[karst2002]

So my birthday is coming up, and I think I'm going to get about 300 bucks from friends and family. I really don't want to spend 300 but if I have to I'll probably will.

So a friend of mine owns a nexus 7 (2013) and is very happy with it. I'm looking into buying a new tablet. The nexus 7 is 3 years old and would be very outdated in a couple years. So these are my questions:

So should I buy the old one for 180 euros or should I save up for a new nexus?

I'm going to use it only for tinkering with custom roms and controlling my chromecast. So it wouldn't matter if I bought an outdated tablet right?

Will android updates become slow for the nexus 7 2013? I know it still doesn't have a android n build.

And is the nexus 9 maybe a better option?

Thanks

 

[Solandri]

Google's unofficial official policy with Nexus devices is a minimum 2 years of major OS updates, 3 years of security updates, or 18 months from the day they last sold it in their store.

http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2015/08/an-update-to-nexus-devices.html

The 2013 Nexus 7 will hit the 3 year mark this July. and 18 months from last sale (April 2015) this October. So support beyond that is not guaranteed. But since you're planning to play with custom ROMs, that probably won't matter - check the Cyanogenmod forums to see what level of support there is for this "old" device.

http://forum.cyanogenmod.org/

The problem with waiting is I'm not sure there's a new Nexus tablet in the planning stages. They officially discontinued the Nexus 9 yesterday, which leaves the Pixel C as their only tablet. I'm not sure what to make of that. Does it mean a new Nexus tablet will be announced soon? Does it mean there will be no more Nexus tablets?

 

[karst2002]

But the nexus 5 will still get android n, and that's like 4 years old.

 

[Solandri]

I have a Nexus 5. It was released Oct 2013, so is only 2.5 years old. It's actually newer than the Nexus 7 (released July 2013).

The Nexus 5 hasn't gotten any Android N betas. It was on the list when the Android N preview first appeared, but was removed from subsequent lists. Whether or not it'll get Android N is anyone's guess.