spec-wise looks really solid . but I'm not the biggest fan of their home,back,multitask hardware buttons. yes. it can save some additional pixels, but to me hardware keys are really inefficient, I really like my tab 2 7 customizable software buttons with Cyanogenmod.
As a CM user, you should know that you can tweak config files and enable virtual keys and disable hardware ones. I personally prefer hardware keys: no app can decide to remove them from the screen, thus taking away their functionality while that app runs, and I think they look awesome and server as a good notification light.
The missing S pen is the only thing keeping me from picking one of these up as I've been thinking about replacing my aging 2012 N7. Hopefully they release a "Note" version with identical hardware. Might also wait around to see what the Nexus 8 will be like.
I am curious, how is your N7 "aging"? Even the 2012 model is very powerful. What do you use it for?
I wouldn't give too much credit to this thing. I just returned a Note 2014 because it was too buggy and unresponsive. I prefer Android products, but in the short time I tried out an iPad Mini retina it was far faster and snappy than the Note 2014. TouchWiz is horrible and slows down otherwise powerful hardware. Until Samsung ditches it, rooting is necessary to unlock the real potential of these tablets.
Stock Android is a pile of manure even on Nexus devices. I pretty much don't recommend any device that can't run Cyanogenmod. Because once you try it, all stock ROMs seem inadequate. TouchWiz is bloat, I agree, and I only like Samsung devices due to their powerful hardware and high compatibility with CM. Rooting is needed to unlock the real potential of ALL Android devices - install ad blockers, custom ROMs, use OpenVPN, ProxyDroid... if you don't want to root, might as well get an iPad instead.