Please excuse my noobness. I am in the market for a tablet and will use it for streaming movies through Netflix or watching movies all day (average 10 hours daily). I know the iPad has a stronger GPU with a weaker CPU/ram but the Nexus has a weaker GPU with a stronger CPU/ram. As far as what I will be using the tablet for, which would hold up better? The thing I am most afraid of is dropped frames during action scenes or after a long time of playback.
Also, what is the tradeoff between having a weaker GPU stronger CPU, weaker CPU stronger GPU
If that's you only motif, streaming videos, then I would (hands down) get the Nexus 10.
The Nexus 10 has a better aspect ratio for movies (you're going to get a ~25% wider screen), higher pixel density, about the same contrast ratio as the iPad, but brighter backlight, has an HDMI port (you can link it directly to your TV/PC/Laptop), and has Front facing Stereo speakers.
So definitely, and hands down, the Nexus 10 beats the iPad when it comes to movies.
Movies are not GPU intensive applications, and you will be able to run them smoothly on both devices regardless of one having better GPU specs than the other.
What the GPU does give you, is a better ability at handling high-end games (... the type of games that I have personally not yet seen, sure Infinity Blade is GPU intensive, but it runs smoothly on the iPhone 4, which is over 2 years old, and lags behind today's hardware).
So having a weaker GPU (for the time being) will not make or break anything.
What the CPU does is help you at handling multi-threaded, high complexity applications, again, you are not compiling codes or editing movies with Adobe After Effects, and since iOS doesn't have real multi-tasking, so you basically won't run out of CPU power.
Android on the other hand does, and it enables you to switch swiftly between two complex processes, or running two processes at the same time in dual windowed mode (... not sure there's an application for it though ... can anyone confirm?).