Thanks everyone for your responses, I really appreciate it! I'm leaning toward a 10" only because it'd be easier to see/read from my lap while seated -- and if I'm gonna go smaller than that, I feel like I should maybe just get a nicer phone with a bigger screen (currently using a HTC Incredible).

Art: I've played with the Nooks, the Motorola Xoom, the Kindle Fire, the iPad, and the Nexus 7. Haven't tried any of the Samsung tabs yet.
If the Nexus 7 came in a 10" I'd have bought it already -- it's light, the screen is gorgeous, and it's super smooth for web browsing. I wouldn't see any reason to choose the Fire instead unless you're mainly going to use it for Kindle and other Amazon media functions. The Xoom just didn't thrill me, the display is meh and the OS is kinda weird. The Nooks aren't too bad for the price although rooting a Nook seems kind of pointless now that the Nexus 7 is out. The iPad is still king for a reason, but I don't own any other Apple/iOS devices and don't use iTunes and I like being able to tinker with Android, so the smoothness and prettiness really aren't worth the extra money to me in light of all that.

Whats weird is the Xoom is a heavy large Nexus 7. With a easy to smudge screen, but yea. I know Cam is trying to sell his cause he loves his N7.

Did you try a Transformer?

The new Galaxy Note looks pretty cool.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2401371,00.asp

I just realized like yesterday that the Nexus 7 is the same price as the Kindle Fire, and I'd have a lot more uses for it.

...Oh.

If I go into a Best Buy, will they likely have a good range of tablets on display? I just wanna play around with them. I will stop by today and check!

Wacom

A Study in Pink said:
Wacom

Same. Currently have a Bamboo, but I want to get a new one that's bigger and comes with Sketchbook.

Michi said:
I just realized like yesterday that the Nexus 7 is the same price as the Kindle Fire, and I'd have a lot more uses for it.

...Oh.

If I go into a Best Buy, will they likely have a good range of tablets on display? I just wanna play around w...

I stopped by yesterday and they had a few tablets, mostly Acers, Samsung, and eReaders. They might not have the exact tablet you're looking for, but you might be able to get an idea of which size you like more.

Anyone interested or excited about the new Microsoft Tablet coming out on Oct. 26? It looks pretty cool to me. I really like their new commercials. I hear they are gonna spend 1.5 billion advertising it.

http://...extremetech.com/...cheap-enough-to-beat-the-ipad

I'm interested and the hardware certainly seems nice but I think it will be a huge fucking dud.

Who is Surface even for? It's a closed ecosystem like the iPad. So it's basically Microsoft's walled garden versus Apple's walled garden, and Apple's walled garden already has approximately eleventy billion times the number of apps that Surface has. So why would anybody choose it over an iPad?

And if you don't want a walled garden, Android is your only choice. So I can't imagine anybody choosing it over a Google tablet.

I'm more interested in the Surface Pro, which lets you switch between the desktop and tablet modes of Win8 (and doesn't limit you to MS's walled garden) as opposed to the Surface which runs the tablet-only Win8 RT. They still haven't announced Surface Pro pricing or availability.

Yeah, Surface Pro is basically the only way I'd pick up a mobile Windows device. I think Windows Phone 8 or whatever it's called LOOKS neat, but it's like... I already have a million Google services and Gmail etc. and I couldn't even tell you what Microsoft's website looks like these days, and I can just imagine you having to make a MSN or Live or whatever the dealy is etc. etc. just to boot the damn thing up... ARGH.

But the Pro tablet, with FULL ASS WINDOWS, now that's kind of tempting, especially if the graphics processor is really up to snuff. Get some real storage space on that thing and... mmm baby.

Microsoft is making really good stuff these days! Outlook.com looks super-good. But it's kind of like, why would I want to bother switching?

It's like all those iPod competitors that came out before smartphones became commonplace. A lot of them were a little better than iPods in one way or another, like the Zune had wi-fi and all that.

But it's kind of like, why would I even bother switching to something 20% better or whatever? It would have to be five or ten times better, because otherwise the cost and pain in the ass of switching just dwarfs the fact that the Surface is marginally better in some ways.

I was hoping Microsoft would be really gutsy and sell these things for half the price of iPads or something. Sort of like the Nexus 7. As it stands right now, it looks like Zune all over again to me.

John Booty said:
But it's kind of like, why would I even bother switching to something 20% better or whatever? It would have to be five or ten times better, because otherwise the cost and pain in the ass of switching just dwarfs the fact that the Surface is marginally better in some ways. .

This is dead on. The blackberry playbook had the same problem. To put it in perspective I was given a playbook for free and still bought an android tablet

So: iPad Mini today

http://arstechnica.com/...isplay-to-take-on-google-amazon/

Anyone think they would actually buy one of these things? I think $329 is just too damn 'spensive. If I were in the market for a small tablet, the only thing that might tempt me is if the camera were far better than say, the Nexus 7. I guess we'll have to wait for the in-depth reviews.

Fuck Apple for releasing a new regular iPad 6 months after the last one. I feel cheated.

It doesn't sound like you're really missing anything, except the Lightning connector that replaces the Dock connector?

The new CPU is faster, but I don't know how much that would matter.

I love the iPad mini form factor. I'm all about the wider screen in a smaller size. Most other small tablets seem just a bit too small, this seems like a better solution.

I think it looks sharp as shit.

Also, I've been really unimpressed with the quality of apps from the android marketplace.

I was leaning towards a nexus 7, but this might be worth the extra cash.