For the time, it was some of the best tablet hardware on the market, Android or otherwise. IIRC it came out before both Windows 8's tablet push and Android 3.x,

For the time, it was some of the best tablet hardware on the market, Android or otherwise. IIRC it came out before both Windows 8's tablet push and Android 3.x, so a hackable tablet with decent hardware was something of a novelty. The $99 price tag during all the fire sales helped a bunch, too.