[General Topics] IcedCube:
G'day,

IcedCube here. I have in my possession a Galaxy Tab 7" and for the life of me, I love the little thing (I recently got a ICS Chinese Tab but it's a different kettle of fish. :p). I carry it everywhere I go, as it's a beautiful size. Looked at the Galaxy Note, and went "Pfft. So what? My sexy little Galaxy Tab is what I want". And even if it's a little "fat", it feels like a tank. I've dropped from chest height onto a concrete floor by accident and it survived. Not a single scratch or crack in the screen. And it had it's protective OEM cover on it too.

Recently (okay, maybe one or two months ago), I got rid of my Iconia Tab A501 (3G). Kinda feel sorry I did that though, because as soon as I loaded the leaked ICS up on it, I felt the Tegra power. Anyway....

My friend recently got a Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9" and I was surprised at it's size and performance. So I guess I am a little envious; but whatever. I was wondering if you guys could help me suggest a tablet. I know I can search google myself, but here we go.

My local PC store has a ASUS Transformer TF201 I believe, but not sure if it's 3G or not. It looks pretty nice and that keyboard is awesome - replenishes vital juice while you type. I wish the Iconia had a keyboard for it, because that Dock connector was quite under-used...

Needs to support hardware video decoding. This helps me along boring car trips, I can load up my anime and have the H/W decode the x264 video stream, without my battery life being depleted quickly. I know Tegra video decoding got really good in ICS, but yeah.

Hardware accessories. Optional, but if the tablet has options (like keyboard) or other things that I can buy to add on to it if I wanted to, then that would give it bonus points.

I know how the Tegra 2 was a bit poor in comparison with other tablets, so if it's not nVidia, then I guess it might be interesting. I'll take a look at nVidia tabs too, so I'm not ruling them out.

Bonus points if there's custom ROMs for it. Even more bonus points if there's AOKP or CM9 for it.

On that note, unlocked bootloader. I'm looking at you, Acer.

At least 10" screen, unless the 8.9" screen has a high resolution. My chinese tab runs at 1024x600 and it's a little meh. I miss the 1280x800 screen that the Iconia Tab has. The screen should also be sharp, because I don't like blurry text.

3G Support. Because what's a tablet to me if I don't have WiFi access on the road? I know I can carry around a pocket WiFi hotspot but then you have to recharge it's batteries and all that crap. Also must be GSM since Australia doesn't have CDMA anymore (was killed off in 2005/2006).

At least 8GB or 16GB internal storage. Bonus points if the tablet has microSD slot, so I can slip in an external microSD filled up with my songs, etc.

Decent battery life. Don't want something that will conk out in less than half a day. Do note that I would be using it on the road, so it should be able to survive moderate web browsing use.

Price tag that won't give the wallet a heart attack. If possible, less than $500. I can go over this, but if I can get it under $500 (or even see if anything's up in the XDA marketplace.... now there's an idea...)

Alright. So that's the list. Over to you! :cool: