Asus.

Does the job for me. Was using it in conference today to make notes on Evernote.
"Swiping" words on the Google screen keyboard was actually quicker than my pen and paper which is not bad for non-typist 58yo me. Hardly any corrections required.

Don't get me wrong, an iPad's a nice bit of kit and I might have bought one but I ended up with the Nexus 7 by default and don't feel like I need to change.

A really great little tablet for a great price right now is the Nook HD+ at $149. Big screen, nearly all Google Play apps available, Google Chrome browser, microSD expandable memory.... Almost as good as an iPad when I played with it at the store the other day.

It looks like you can run Cyanogenmod on those, so you won't even be tied to the B&N/Nook ecosystem if you don't want to be.

Again: for some time now you have Google Apps access so install whatever :)

Can you ditch their launcher? Ads? Browser customization?

Google Play Store access is great; beats Amazon. It's still not quite the same as a general Android tablet, let alone a fully open distribution like Cyanogen.

(In fairness, I run Touchwiz, not Cyanogen or AOSP.)