I replaced the battery in a first Gen Note last year. It does require soldering, but I managed to do it without any major experience - in fact, that was only the second time I successfully fixed anything by soldering. But you do need a soldering iron, some solder and I've found a desoldering pump very helpful to remove the old solder when removing the old battery, my relatively cheap soldering kit actually came with one.
Otherwise it's just unsoldering the three wires, ripping out the old battery (I think it's got a bit of glue to hold it in place), stick in the new one and solder in the three wires.
But yes, having a simple plug would have made things easier
