The Note is amazing. I ditched my iPhone for it and will never go back. IPhone is inferrior in hardware, OS, and usability.
The size is what makes it great. It is like a large Skyrocket with better resolution and S-Pen capability.
It is hard to believe that anyone who knows about smartphones would be disappointed with the Note compared to a Nexus. I fell for the Nexus hype and waited for it, but was glad when the Note was announced. Why? The Nexus has a slower processor, inferior camera, no S-Pen, smaller screen, No gorilla glass, no removable SD, the worlds worst battery life for an android - go read posts by owners.
How can anyone NOT see the advantages of the Note over the Nexus??
Now, if the Note is too big for you, that's one thing, and it is understandable that the size will not fit everyone, but if you are comparing devices and features, the Note blows away the Nexus and the iPhone, and as of today, everything else out there. ICS is not an issue, since it will be available in a few weeks. How long will you keep your phone? So what's a few weeks?
When the Note does get ICS -- lookout. According to dev forum threads, CPU and graphics will improve significantly on all processors 1.2 and above. Browsing speeds (with flash btw) are up as much as 550% on 1.5 Ghz CPUs.
POINT: the Note is already faster than the Nexus, go do your homework. When it gets ICS the Nexus sales will plummet.
When the iPhone users wake up, they will discover that the next big thing is ALREADY HERE.