It's unfortunate that a good OS will show up on such shoddy hardware provided by Samsung, the king of cheap plastics. To the OP, I tested out ICS, it is pretty nice, but I stay away from Android due to its laggyness and lack of good integration of services even at this stage of the game.

If I were to get a phone right now, it would still be an N9 due to price lowering...but if that is not an option, then you basically have 3 OS's to choose from. IOS is IOS, it can be nice at times. My mom can use it, b/c it is simple. Last is Windows phone. Test it out, see if you like. It's too bad there are not many viable OS's out right now. Would love to see a WebOS or new Maemo phone. Next phone I get will be a Blackberry 10 OS phone, the closest thing to MeeGo and WebOS. Tested out a playbook, loved the UI, but dev was minimal on it, hopefully it will take off; although Blackberry is MUCH worse shape then Nokia, which says a lot..

.Hardwarewise, if you can wait a little longer, Pureview tech is coming to Nokia windows phones, and Windows 8 is pretty killer for non-linux heads...but you will have to wait a little, b/c Lumias are non-upgradable to Windows 8...sucks for Lumia owners, but I could care less, since there is a certain Lumia troll on this forum who deserves this. So again, if you are not into tweaking or MeeGo as much, wait for Windows 8 or Blackberry 10. Both will be nice, and Nokia hardware is still tops in looks and quality compared to Samsung/Sony/Motorola crap. And Apple products are great to look at, but don't drop it, or it will shatter into millions of tiny glass pieces. Fun.