[AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note II] netsyd:
I have both sitting on my desk right now. I love them both... and I'm struggling with which one to keep as a daily driver. Someone mentioned the Samsung seemed lighter - it is not. N4 is 4.9oz GN2 6.3oz. May not seem like much, but when you hold them both the size/weight difference is noticeable.

To answer the "why" I have the GN2 - Battery, External SD, S-Pen, LTE.

The N4 battery is less than stellar. I don't know how folks manage to squeeze out 3-4 hours of screen on time and off charger times of 1+ days. I was lucky to get 2-3 hours screen time (auto-brightness). My day lasts from 5:45am to about 11pm and I would typically put the N4 on the charger with the battery gasping for juice (4% or less) and that's only if I avoided using the phone most of the evening. Most days I plugged in whenever I had the chance so I could play a game or two in the evening.

N4 with no external-SD card is a pain. I want and need more than 16 GB of space. I have a 32 GB MicroSD and I've considered moving to a 64 GB. People love the cloud, and sure that's great for them, but I work in a school district and we block streaming audio and video. So, there goes the cloud. (Before anyone says anything about how crappy it is that it's blocked - we simply do not have the bandwidth to support streaming. It's not that we have a problem with it.)

Why I'm struggling with which to use daily.

N4 has a better screen (everyone is different). The original N4 screen setup was horribly calibrated so it looked washed out. molesarecoming and some others are working on that and with some of the latest kernels the colors are fantastic. The Note 2 screen also just doesn't look as crisp. Not sure if its the PPI or the AMOLED vs IPS but the N4 just looks better to me.

LTE - When I bought the N4, LTE was not online in Denver. Now it is. You don't know how slow your data speeds are until you start using LTE. Its like going from Edge to HSPA+. No LTE on the N4 was a TERRIBLE decision.

Keyboard - The stock android "swipe" keyboard is fantastic on the N4. It's fast and more importantly accurate. I've tried Samsung's, Swype, and Swiftkey Flow - none of them compete. The only version I've found in the forums to install on the Note is the 4.1 version which was somewhat buggy and definitely not as good. That said the S-Pen writing recognition is a thing of beauty.

S-Voice - Sucks. That is all. Using Google Now and Google's voice recognition is a joy. Unfortunately Samsung decided to make it a pain to get to.

Buttery Smooth - Call it whatever you want but the N4 feels smoother. Both devices setup the same way (Apex Pro / Apps / wallpaper / widgets) the N4 is a smoother experience even though the Antutu scores (18117 for the N4 - 17862 for the Note2) are very close. I get jitter/lag scrolling between screens or lists on the GN2 that I don't get on the N4.

Size - Maybe I'm still adjusting the GN2, but the N4 is really nice for one handed use. Picking it up to quickly handle an email or look at a notification is nice and not awkward. The GN2 can be done one handed, but it just feels more uncontrolled since you have to move the phone around in your hand a lot to reach things... And why Sammy put the hardware back button on the right side of the phone I'll never understand. It's like they wanted people to drop the device.

Qi Wireless - I added this to the GN2 for about $15, comes built in on the N4. If you haven't used wireless charging, you're missing out.

Anyway, hope that helps someone in their decision to pick up an N4 or not.