Mike, your timing is good. About three weeks back the Mrs. and I finally broke down and got smart phones with data plans for the first time. Loving them. The convenience is fantastic.
We got last generation Samsungs very inexpensively. She got the Note. It's big, but she wanted it, mostly for her not so great vision. It's a fantastic phone.
I got the Galaxy S2 HD. Again, larger than most phones, but it's got a great screen. Both run Android Ice Cream Sandwich. Got to love those OS names.
Heck, even having those hi-res camera components is going to be very convenient in the same package. A quick aside: I couldn't believe how easy it was to take great panorama style pics with these things. Gorgeous and practical.
Battery life has been OK, but we've been using WiFi at home on them and that eats power pretty good. YMMV. Nightly charging is probably just a good habit in this day and age for such things anyway.
I've been using iOS apps on my iPod for a long time and considered going iPhone instead, but it sounds like you're already fairly familiar with the Samsung comments. They're great products. Highly recommended, based on our admittedly short run so far.
I even just today added a 32GB micro SD card to hers for all of $30. Try doing that with an iPhone.
BTW, we have LTE cell service and it really is amazingly fast. This was my first exposure to it and I was shocked.
Best of luck with your decision.
