I don't intend to buy one of the heavily locked down options at either end of that scale. Just waiting for the heavyweight tablets to get ICS versions/upgrades to be announced. I can't be alone on this and I reckon that slow tablet sales in this 'mid-range' of vendors is actually attributable to the target audience being discriminating enough buyers to make sure they get the best possible product for the money, rather than just buying a) the cheapest option or b) picking a supplier and blindly accepting whatever they are offering.

I welcome this split and the fact that it is hopefully obvious to the manufacturers. The fanbois will buy Apple regardless so there is no point taking their preferences into account when designing the tablet. With the extreme low-end gone too, hopefully they will realise that penny-pinching when it comes to components which will lower the overall quality isn't worth it either. With those segments out of the picture, with any luck what they come up with has more chance of actually appealing to me as part of a narrower target demographic.

I suspect the so-called analysts will once again be proved to have no more insight than the average person on the street. Transformer Prime with ICS will be taking my money unless something better comes along in the meantime.

I too am waiting for the Transformer Prime. Personally, I have not invested in a table so far because I was waiting for the software / hardware to mature. I think ICS is the going to work well on a tablet as powerfull as the Prime and it should be worth the money. Lets see the price it is released at.