[AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note II] cy88:
When you ask such question in Note 2 forum, my feeling is that you are going to get some bias answer.

I have both phones, and I think both phone are top notch in their own way. Here's what I think:

Nexus 4

- Very solid build, the construction is as solid as iPhone. Feels great in hand.

- The display does produce some relatively accurate colour compare to my IPS displays. I do a lot of photo editing/viewing. On the other hand, the sAMOLED does throw the colour off a bit by over saturated (nature of AMOLED), with the "natural" profile on Note2, it does become closer to real colour. Pixel density on the N4 is also better, but it's not critical as the Note 2 display is pretty sharp with the sAMOLED HD.

- AOSP, AOSP, AOSP! If you aren't a fan of Touchwiz, this is what you should keep. Not just the updates, as they don't come everyday. It's the user experience. Samsung does add a lot of neat feature that many can't live without, but in my honest opinion, AOSP does provide a nice layout and great feature out the box. I am also not a huge fan of Samsung's oversized UI, either.

- Believe it or not, the on screen button is a very important "feature" of N4 - You now have a place to put your thumb when you hold the phone, especially when passing the phone to people to show them stuff...without accidentally touching any of the buttons. However, also because of the on screen button, you do lose some screen estate.

- Buttery smooth, yes, smoother than the "more powerful" Note 2

- The price - You are indeed getting a lot of phone for the price that you are paying.

- Battery is medicore, partially due to bugs of 4.2 I believe. Dead locks are draining the battery.

- Lack of SD card might be a deal breaker for you. It isn't for me.

- Camera sucks.

Note 2

- Huge display, this is probably the max that you can carry with the borderline portability. The display is beneficial for reading stuff, browsing, sharing contents with friends

- The battery is ridiculous. The size, with the power management of the software makes it unreal. I get average 2 hours of light/moderate usage per 10%, on LTE.

- Touchwiz - To use the full features of the Note2, you probably don't want AOSP. The S-Pen works well with touchwiz, and I find touchwiz works well with large displays due to the oversized UI elements

- Size - It's pocketable, but it's not extremely comfortable. Taking in and out, using it in public, talking on it looks very awkward. No matter how big your hands are, how big of a person you are, this IS larger than your average phone by a lot

- One hand usability - Samsung does have some one hand accessibility but in general, reaching for places around the screen is a struggle with one hand

- Great sound - Speaker, and headphone jack.

- Strong vibrator

- S Pen - Unless you have a use for it, it's a gimmick. It's fun to fool around with it, but the hype tends to die off quickly

- FAST charging. Nexus 4 is fast, but Note 2 is even faster consider it's massive battery. This is a very important feature to me.

- Impressive camera, but not that it's any/much better than that of SGS3

- Oh, if you don't have a 7" tablet yet, this should fill that gap a bit.

As it stands, Note 2 has some very attractive points to me, such as the large display for reading and the insane battery life that makes me not to worry about being close to a charger. However, I don't feel comfortable using it on a daily basis due to the size. WIth that said, I am using a Note 2 now as I gave my Nexus 4 (8GB) to my other half. I have a 16GB coming in a month, and I will re-evaluate it again by then.

These two phones are pretty much Android in it's best form in today's market, and they are not substitutable for each other due to the different nature of them. The phone war has evolved to beyond to the specs-war just like computing world. The "better specs" of Note 2 doesn't necessary determine whether the phone is better or not, and with that said, Nexus 4 specs is pretty impressive too. You need to pick your own base on your need :)

Hope it helps a bit with your decision! Any more specific questions you have that can help with your decision, just ask. It's a tough one to make.