HTC comms manager Jeff Gordon tweeted a photo of a box saying, "something amazing, beautiful and highly confidential just arrived." With the unveil expected on 15 October this is pretty telling that we could see an HTC Nexus 9 after all.

The Google Nexus 9 has leaked in a photo via @upleaks which simply tweeted the photo with no further information. For the look it'll be thin, feature a camera with flash and be HTC made.

We've been hearing of a collaboration between Google and HTC to make the next Nexus tablet for a while and The Wall Street Journal has had word from "people familiar with the matter" that HTC engineers have been flying to the Googleplex in Mountain View to work on the project.

Originally, that was thought to be an 8-inch Nexus 8 tablet, but thanks to a number of other more recent leaks, it is now believed to be a 9-inch Nexus 9.

We've decided that there's enough out there now to piece together a decent picture of when we can expect with the HTC-made device.

But like with any product at this stage, there will be plenty of other nuggets of information leaked or released over the coming weeks or months, so check back often as we'll be updating our guide on the Google Nexus 9.

Release date

A document leak from Nvidia revealed that the HTC Nexus 9 is to be "expected in the third quarter of 2014". Soon then.

The document was filed by Nvidia with the US International Trade Commission (which was pulled soon after) and also suggested that the new tablet will use the company's latest mobile processing architecture, the Tegra K1.

Operating system

It is strongly believed that in coming so soon, the Nexus 9 will be one of the first devices to sport Android L, if not the first. That means it will benefit from all of the new features associated with the next-generation Android OS.

Android L will look slightly different, adopting Google's Material Design aesthetics; a flatter, more colourful user interface that matches the general thinking in the industry now.

Among other features, it will also have enhanced notifications, a boost in CPU and graphics use, and promises better battery life.

READ: What's new with Android L? Seven things to be excited about

Processor

As well as Nvidia's leaked document, other evidence suggests that the Nexus 9 will sport the Tegra K1 Denver processor running at 2.5GHz. A CPU-Z benchtest claims that it was the 64-bit system on chip processing unit with 192-core Kepler graphics processing.

This is effective the self-same processor that has so far wowed us when going hands-on with the Nvidia Shield tablet - a gaming-centric device that is capable of running console-like titles.

The chip is capable of running Unreal Engine 4, DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.4 so is being embraced by many games developers as an ideal way to port console titles to mobile platforms.

It is thought the tablet will have 2GB of RAM.

Display

The screen on the Nexus 9 is rumoured to have the same resolution at the current Nexus 10: 2560 x 1600. However, thanks to the smaller 8.9-inch real estate, that means a bump in pixels per inch to 340ppi. It should therefore look sharper and clearer.

HTC

HTC's involvement was first mentioned alongside the codename "Flounder", which appeared in a Chrome bug report. It has also been called "Volantis" in other rumoured leaks.

It will mark a significant return by the Taiwanese manufacturer to the tablet market.

Storage

Current storage capacities rumoured for the Nexus 9 are 16GB and 32GB.

Other features and design

The Nexus 9 is claimed to be coming with an 8-megapixel camera with optical image stabilisation on the rear and a 3-megapixel snapper on the front. It will also have front-facing stereo speakers and an aluminium "zero-gap" construction, say reports.

Rumours have it that it will weigh 418g and sport a 7.8mm thin body.