I've had my friend's Note for a few days now. So far I like the screen and customizability, and the size is pretty pocketable, but I find the OS laggy, and on par with the iPhone 3GS I just sold. Pretty sad for a one year old device. I'm sure the Note 2 will be much better but I didn't expect this type of performance for such a recent model. Also I don't think most applications make full use of the large screen size's potential, it seems like they're designed for the smaller Androids and scaled up to fit.
I'm leaning towards sticking with the iPhone 5 for now. I really wish Apple would release a larger iPhone and this experience made me appreciate how polished iOS is.