My only tablet at the moment is an HP TouchPad I nabbed during the fire sale last year (currently dual-booting ICS), but since the hardware's pretty out-of-date at this point, I could hardly recommend it now. Hmm... I agree, the Nexus 7 is a pretty clear winner in the 7" lineup. Great hardware and update support for a great price. It's what I would buy, I think. I'm probably telling you stuff you already know, but the top 9"-10" tablets right now are probably the Transformer Pad Infinity (Pretty top-of-the-line, so the price is sort of crazy right now), Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, and the Kindle Fire HD 8.9". The Kindle HD is pretty locked-down if you don't mess with it, but there are plenty of ways to sideload Google Play apps, root it, or flash custom ROMs. A lot of potential for that price, assuming you're willing to go through that hassle.