Yes, it's that time of the year and considering a new tablet, but you also don't want to settle for a subpar product so you're setting some demands. For me I've used ten inch tablets but I really have been prefering the 7-8 inch range tablets with 8 inch being the max, for eBook reading and general reading. The beauty about 7-8 inch tablets that they can be used in portrait mode and have about the same size as an average book. In portrait mode you have alot more room since it's a 16:9 resolution mostly. You can hold it with two hands while chatting with two thumbs. 

At some point I plan on buying a new tablet, I have a nexus 7 (2013), while I still like this tablet a lot there's some shortcomings like outdated 2 year old hardware, battery feels a bit on the low side since nowadays 8 inch tablets have 4-5k mAh batteries.

Anyways, here's the demand list

• Front facing speakers
• Atleast 1920x1200 or 2560x1440
• IPS or amoled display
• 7 to 8 inch with 8 inch being the Max
• Snapdragon 801 (2.5GHz) chipset or better
• At least 3GB ram
• Good build quality
• Waterproof is a plus
• Android, OS of choice
• Stock Android is a plus
• Or a popular manufacturer so CyaNoGen will most likely be available
• 4.5k mAh battery or better
• HDMI mini port is a huge plus

All I can think of right now.