I went with the Samsung Tab 2 7.0 Student Edition at Fry's for $249.99 instead of the Nexus 7, and I am happy with my choice. I have a lot of movies and music files stored on my 32 GB SDmicro card that would never fit on the N7. The IR blaster is also pretty impressive and works better as a universal remote than my Cox cable DVR remote -- setup of the remote was a breeze too.
The Student Edition's keyboard and USB adapter would normally cost an extra $100, so this is real bonus if you can get it. The student keyboard is very comfortable to use, although it limits you to portrait mode. The USB adapter included with the Student Edition can be plugged into the side of the keyboard so you can attach a mouse to the setup as well. That means you can have both the external keyboard and the mouse working simultaneously so this little tablet can function much like a desktop computer. The keyboard also has a lot of special function keys that allow you to activate just about any of the tablet's features you can think of. It is a pretty impressive combo as long as you can manage using the tablet with a keyboard in portrait mode.
On the downside, the USB adapter does not put out enough current to support devices attached to an unpowered USB hub. It also has problems supporting some, but not all, older USB keyboards and older USB mice. Most modern USB keyboards and mice seem to work fine with the USB adapter, as do flash drives.
Another negative is the fact that the rear camera does not have an autofocus function. This makes it it impossible to take clear pictures of close objects such as documents you might want to convert into PDF files for reading, so the wonderful CamScanner app is not compatible with the T2 7.0.
Finally, Samsung does not currently sell an adapter for the T2 7.0 that supports HDMI or HDTV for mirroring whatever is on the T2 screen on a large screen TV or external monitor. Samsung offers such HDTV adapters for some of their other tablets, but these adapters do not work on this T2 7.0 unit for some reason. On the other hand, DNLA transmission of video, audio, and photos works quite well with the right software. I installed the Twonky app for this purpose, and it works like a charm and is very responsive. Pausing and resuming the playing of video files is almost instanteous from the on screen controls on the T2, so you can easily watch a movie stored on your Tab 2's SDmicro card on your big screen TV or play you music files wirelessly on your home stereo connected to a DLNA compatible device such as a smart WiFi TV, Blu-ray player, Sony PS3 game console, etc.
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