[T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy Note II] Baratheonist:
I too was sitting on the fence on whether to pick the the N7100 or T-mobile's handset. I eventually chose the latter for the following reasons. It may not necessarily apply to everyone. I'm not an engineer so I don't know much about technical details but I am very logical in understanding how things work:

1) Tmo has done a fairly good job on refarming the 1900 band for hspa+ and true enough you will get speeds >10mbps. I previously tested this service on an international SGS2 and international GN1. And that was using a prepaid sim. So clearly international versions of samsung will have hspa+ service IF there is coverage. However as to date, we still have to see consistent and widespread coverage of hspa+ on the 1900 band. Who's to say that by year's end the refarming would have been completed to a satisfactory level as promised by T-mobile? What if coverage would still be practically the same in YOUR area? What if completion simply means additional cities/towns but your area basically has already been refarmed to completion. I feel that will be the case with MY area. It's still really "wait and see" for the refarming project. While with the t-mo variant you get consistent hspa+ ALREADY, NOW and greater coverage simply because they have been designed to work with the existing hspa+ AWS bands of Tmo. 1900 hspa+ is just additional for the Tmo variant.

In my case, I use my home wifi. So that situation negates the 4G coverage comparison between the 2 .

I'm curious as to what your home speed differences were? Was it that significant to outweigh the benefit of more consistent hspa+ coverage outside your home? I understand your mobile tests showed Tmo's variant to be the winner by "default". Meaning N7100 didn't have a chance to even compete. That alone is enough for me to chose Tmo's.

2) N7100 has a 21mbps hspa+ radio. Tmo's variant has a 42mbps radio. Although I am not seeing speeds proportionate to the advertised 42mbps radio in my area. I believe some folks around the US have demonstrated 20-30mbps on Tmo's network. Just scourge the net for those blogs and anecdotes. Obviously the 42mbps radio is required for those speeds. I guess it will all depend on the location and if 42mbps hspa+ is enforced on the surrounding towers.

3) re: bloatware - They don't bother me much. However for the tinkerers out there, this may be a deal breaker. But I am certain there is always a way around this for the advanced users.

4) N7100 doesn't have an LTE radio. Tmo's variant potential has this feature. That adds a little future proofing value to it. Check engadget's latest review of Tmo's variant. To quote:

"Also, according to the T889's FCC application, the device includes support for LTE bands 4 (AWS) and 17, though this particular set of radios is currently locked on T-Mobile. We're hoping the AWS LTE band will be enabled for us as soon as the network is ready to push ahead with its next-gen technology, but we haven't heard any official word from Magenta about this. Regardless of what happens, we wouldn't put it past hackers Android programming aficionados to come up with a way of taking advantage of this."

Regardless, by the time LTE would be fully and satisfactorily enforced, we all would have probably moved on to another device.