Samsung Galaxy Note 2 up for pre-order from Phones 4U

The enormous Samsung Galaxy Note 2 has broken cover like a whale coming up for air -- it's available to harpoon now for pre-order at Phones 4U, with contracts available from O2, Orange and Vodafone starting from £31 for 24 months.

That's only if you pay £150 upfront though, a total of £894 over the course of the contract. In order to get your mitts on this new behemoth for free, you'll be paying upwards of £41 a month for 24 months, or £984 over the two years.

On O2 for this price you'll get 1GB of data and unlimited calls and texts. From Orange you get the same data, but only 900 minutes and 3,000 texts, but with the addition of two Orange Swapables from a choice of 12, including Sky Sports Mobile TV, The Times subscription, Navigon sat-nav and more.

The best deal, in my opinion, is through Vodafone. It offers the phone for free at £42 per month on a 24-month contract (£1,008 in total). But, for this extra quid you bag double the amount of data as its rivals -- 2GB. This could well be a deciding factor with a phone like the Galaxy Note 2 -- what good would such a vast, browser-friendly mobile be without loads of data with it?

These prices place the Note 2 above its smaller sibling, the Galaxy S3, which you can get free from around £30 per month, but cheaper than the newly announced iPhone 5, which according to our guide to the best deals is available free from £46 per month.

It's worth noting that Phones 4U is effectively selling you a SIM-free Note 2 and bundling a contract with it, so the networks themselves may have different offers closer to launch.

Phones 4U states the delivery date as 2 October, and along with your pre-order you'll get three months' free Wi-Fi (at Phones 4U hotspots), a free Samsung case and free 7Digital music vouchers. Let's hope Samsung and the phone retailer can live up to this date and we don't see another delivery debacle like the iPhone 5.

We've already had our hands on the Note 2 and were impressed with its 5.5-inch display -- perfect for browsing the web or watching videos -- and its mighty quad-core processor. We did have some concerns about battery life, a problem the original Note suffered from, and it's hard to tell how the 3,100mAh on-board battery will fare at powering this monster until we can put it through a barrage of benchmark tests for ourselves. Check back soon for our full review.

We know the somewhat ludicrous size will be divisive, but are you excited about the Samsung Galaxy Note 2? Is it on your wishlist? Or are these contracts too pricey? Have a whale of a time in the comments below on over on our gargantuan Facebook page.