You would be surprised how well W8 works with a touch screen. I think they concentrated on that and neglected the mouse. I'll try and meet my new laptop/tablet next week personally and if I can't find the 128GB version, I'll order from MS store.

That right, about 8GB according to what I read.

The RT tablet includes MS Office (which is why it has to have the Desktop mode). AFAIK the Pro tablet doesn't include MS Office but of course there are various free and/or online alternatives.

^^^ there's still options one cannot access via metro on RT tablet and has to use Control Panel for, but yes Office RT is actually Office ARM, a set of native applications that run on desktop. No Office on the pro included in the price. BTW they must have ported Outlook to ARM as well, I wonder if they release it in W8.1 RT

The Pro doesn't come with Office in the sense that it is activated and free to use. From what I understand, it does come with Office pre-installed and you will see an Office 365 window where you can sign up and start using straight away or enter an Office 2013 code and start using.

Ah good. My dad will be pleased as he wants to see the Surface Pro in real life. I'll tell him to go into John Lewis and have a look. I'm in London until Monday so we should have a chance to have a look I don't know any shop in Ireland that would have it on display.

John Lewis on Oxford Street has a pretty good selection of Windows 8 PCs at the moment. Makes a change from Christmas time when the shop was covered in android tablets.

He will be able to check out quite a few different hybrids and convertibles as well as normal laptops, ultrabooks etc.

They are pretty well stocked in W8 PCs (and Macs ). He's not really interested in convertibles and hybrids other than the Surface Pro and he has 2 Windows 7 laptops so he doesn't need another normal laptop/ultrabook unless one of them snuffs it again.