Google launches Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Android Marshmallow, Pixel C hybrid tablet and new Chromecast

Targets both Apple and Microsoft with bevy of new devices

Google launched a veritable flotilla of competition-baiting hardware today off the back of its Android Marshmallow mobile operating system, which was also officially released.

Revealing a 5.2-in Nexus 5X smartphone and the 5.7-in Nexus 6P smartphone, Google gave the world the more or less expected new hardware to run Android Marshmallow, the latest build of its mobile operating system.

With the smaller device built by LG - who created the Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 before it - and the larger put together by Huawei, the devices seem to play a fine game of catch-up with Apple's latest iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. Except for one difference - a 32GB Nexus 5X will cost only £339 in the UK, while the Nexus 6P will cost only £449 for a 32GB model, with even the 128GB version weighing in at just £579.

While they're both a far cry from the Nexus 4's bottom-end £239 price of a few years back, Google is still clearly pricing its flagship devices incredibly aggressively.

With competitive screen resolutions, fingerprint sensors and USB Type-C for fast charging, the devices are bringing most of the features of phones twice their price - both on the Android and iOS platforms.

Perhaps the more surprising(ish - leaks have been doing the rounds for days) was the Pixel C. A hybrid tablet apparently put together by some of the Google team who work on the popular Chromebook (which the company said now has more units in US schools than "any other type of PC combined) it's a 10.2-in Marshmallow-powered tablet that works with a (sold separately) keyboard to clearly take on Microsoft's Surface series and Apple's iPad Pro.

Google's taken a few strange liberties with the device's design, though. In an apparent effort to be different to the competition ("No kickstand or hinge to to get in the way!") the tablet magnetically snaps to a lift-up rigid flap on the keyboard. Meanwhile, the keyboard fits the 10.2-inch screen by shaving off five of the function keys you'd see on a regular keyboard.

UK pricing hasn't yet been revealed, but £449 for the device and around £100 for the keyboard is probably not far off the mark. Perhaps Google will do what Microsoft has still never imagined possible and sell the two as a reduced bundle.

Finally, Google showed off a sequel to the Chromecast television streaming product, as well as Chromecast Audio - a version built only to stream sound to HiFi systems by Wi-Fi.

Chromecast speaks largely for itself - it's basically a Spotify streamer to replace tired and outdated Bluetooth or docking tech - but the new Chromecast seems to have ambitions way beyond the station of the original budget HDMI YouTube-streamer.

Retailing at £30, the curiously hockey puck-shaped device could never, like its predecessor, be criticised for lacking apps. At least, not if Google's plans come to fruition.

For as well as streaming the likes of YouTube, Spotify, Netflix an Android phone's photo gallery and web browsers and all the other cross-platform apps we've come to expect from Chromecast in the two years since it launched, Chromecast is following Apple's recently rejuvenated Apple TV into another important area: gaming.

Computing had some hands-on time with kart racer Angry Birds Go! operating in a two-player split screen mode on a large television. With one player sending their race positioning data to their opponent's phone (in this case, cheekily, Google was using iPhone 6s's as the demo phones) and the recipient sending both packets to the Chromecast, the resulting effect was competitively close to anything Nintendo offered in the last generation of the console wars, the phone accelerometers even being utilised to ‘steer' the cars.

Computing also had a quick attempt at WGT Golf Mobile, its still-life photographed golf course holes still looking fairly crisp on the big screen.

Google of course hopes that, rather than ports of existing mobile games, developers may start developing titles specifically to be Chromecasted, which will place the kind of targets failed consoles like Ouya aimed for as nothing more than tertiary considerations for Chromecast.

If niches are found, Google (and indeed Apple, should Apple TV achieve similar successes) may start to find itself a serious contender in the ongoing "battle for the living room" as £400 devices such as Microsoft's Xbox One continue to leave a bitter taste in the mouth with expensive games and underutilised features such as cable television pass-through features.

All in all, it's been an interesting day in technology, as the third horse enters what can now comfortably be called the hybrid tablet race, and yet another budget-priced streaming accessory places the mobile phone as the most important piece of hardware in any end user's hand.