Mark, not sure if Win8 is compatible. It may be worth looking around for a runout model Toshiba, they are a better (reliability wise) laptop than Asus, plus some of the runout models have Win 8 with a downgrade option for win7.
Here's an i7 model at Harris Technology with win8 & win 7 downgrade.
http://www.ht.com.au/part/AK357-Tosh...HDD/detail.hts