In my opinion, the Note might not be a clear winner in terms of phone-ability. Yes, the screen might be it's biggest selling point. I did read some article that said the Note is a bit challenging to use as a mobile phone, simply because of it's size. If you do mostly emails and messeging with it, then great, the Note will work well. And the battery life is also good, considering it's a superphone. The way I see the Note, it that it's a half-way point between the S2 and the Tab.
The S2 is fantastic. Yes, the battery life is questionable, but not unbearable. I get 2 days use out of it with light use, but you must remember, we living in a wold of smartphones, and now superphones. We must move away from the days when a single charge would last 4-5days, as was with Nokia and the like. The phones we have today do tonnes more, work 1000 times better, so naturally, power consumption will increase. If you manage 1 days use out of it, I'd say thats good enough. I find the S2 to be perfect. The screen is big enough for comfortable reading, not too big, so one hand operation is still managable, so the other hand can continue on with it's tasks.....
.... Performance is great, it's snappy, and quick, functions are beautiful. The only thing that lets the Note have an edge over the S2, is it's screen. Not the the S2 screen is small, I still find sometimes I'm feeling the screen of the S2 is too big for it's own good....
So, the S2 is more usable as a phone, and reader and all sorts, with the Note being focused at the "reader" handset, for those that do more reading, note taking, and emailing.... Not that the S2 sucks at it, the Note is just better for that purpose. Other than that, they pritty much the same.... So you have to decide what is the intended purpose for the phone, and base your purchace on that. It's the same like choosing between a Porsche 911 and a M5 BMW. Only problem with that scenario is, would the wife like you buying a Porsche for yourself, or an M5 for family......?????
