I don't have a Vox in my hands but have an Andoid tablet with similar specs (running 2.3 with actually a bit less ram).
1) I would be surprised if .avi files won't be supported in the stock video player but if not there are plenty of free movie playing apps.
2) No netflix if you are canadian because the android app doesn't work for us. It does for US netflix and hopefully will in Canada at some point.
3) There will probably be a stock mp3 player but if not there are loads of free apps to play music/audio files.
4) Yes, you can surf the web through your wif-fi. No sure what the stock browser is like but there are good apps available.
5) No idea on the specifics of Pulse. From what I have seen it looks like an online way to share what you are reading and comments as you do so.
6) The Reading Life Stas on my Kobo includes sideloaded books and the totals are for across devices.
7) Books are downloaded to your device but if you delete them you can reload them from the server. The reading life stats are updated to the server when you connect.
8) There are some magazine subsciptions available via Kobo directly but I noticed in the Vox promos them mentioning zinio. (
www.zinio.com for USA or
http://ca.zinio.com). They have all the usual newstand magazines (US and EW among many others).
I have an account and get my reader's digest that way which btw is perfect size for a 7" tablet. You can browse and see the prices which are cheaper than print copies when you get a subscription (single issues are comporable to newstand).