[T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy Note II] jaded_tree:
1. I forgot about Google Sync until this morning. If you have a Google account, this is one way to transfer your phone contacts. I used this to migrate from Blackberry to Windows Mobile on the HD2 and then again when switching to my first Android ROM on the HD2. I don't know how I missed this earlier. Anyway, the "Copy Contacts from WinMob to Android" thread in the HD2 General section (I don't think I can post links here yet) has other methods you can try - there's probably a method you'll feel comfortable trying out.

As far as text messages go, there is a post titled "Migrating Windows Mobile to Android" on the site "piemaster dot net" which has instructions how to migrate the text messages to Android.

2. The screen size is excellent for me; the colors are vibrant and everything is more readable. It really appears to be a true high-def screen. I'm not old by any means, but in recent months I've had trouble focusing on distant objects after looking at the HD2 screen for more than a few minutes. And the HD2's screen was much better than those in the Blackberry Curve series.

3. I got the Note 2 for long term use (it's being described as a "future-proof" phone), so I plan to take care of it as well as I did the HD2. It appears (so far) that it's hard to scratch the screen of a Note 2 - I don't know what I did several months ago, but back then I did discover a scratch on my HD2 screen. A couple of months ago something may have happened to the phone where the USB cable had to be plugged at a certain angle on the HD2 in order for it to charge, and sometimes even if it appeared to be charging it was actually losing charge. So I have to watch how I pull the USB cable (and even the headphones) out of the Note 2. I need a case for it soon, but I will try my best not to drop it on the floor from any height. Someone did claim to run over one by accident and the phone still worked, just had a dent on the back cover - it was on one of threads in the General section. . .

4. TouchWiz reminds me of the MIUI ROMs I tried on the HD2, so there wasn't too much of a learning curve as far as getting basic stuff done (the gestures, though, will take me a while). I am going to miss Sense 3.5 (the clock and weather widget + Friendstream), but Samsung didn't do too bad with this version of TouchWiz. The keyboard has Swype built in, but I don't really need it since the speech-to-text feature works perfectly (it transcribes as I talk, not after I talk like on the HD2 Sense 3.5 ROMs). The only big downside with the Note 2 is that there is no USB Mass Storage feature, so if you're using Linux, you'll need to make sure that you have MTP capability installed on your computer before you can connect the Note 2 and transfer files.

As far as my (temporarily) decommissioned HD2s - I actually have two of them - one will go in for JTAG service early next year and the other needs the USB contacts cleaned off. If I don't have time to do development work on them, stock Android will be put on both and will basically serve as glorified media players.

Before I forget. . . the sound quality on the Note 2 is excellent - it reminded me of the sound quality from one of the Samsung media players I used regularly a few years ago. No need for Beats Audio or anything similar. . .