My N900 is slowly dying so I started looking around for a replacement as well.
So far, I narrowed down the search to 3 phones:
Galaxy Note(Pros:Screen,Stylus,the Intl' model benchmarks are great,decent battery life if tweaked correctly. Cons: Maybe too big)
HTC One S(The perfect generic phone, Pros: Great battery life, Great CPU, HTC Sense. Cons: battery not removable, no SD slot[16gigs is all you get], only 4.3" screen which is the same as the Galaxy S2[i.e PenTile])

or to wait for the Lumia 920,
I find it hard to wait so I am leaning hard for the Note.

I wouldnt get the Note 2, as it even bigger than the previous model and that plastic white design like the S3 is absolutely ugly. Also, so far Samsung released all the new features from the S3 for the Note.