[Eomer]

I'm from the UK originally, and when I took a look around some of the stores in Akihabara.... maybe 2 months ago or so.. I did see some pretty good deals..(Not amazing or anything, but decent.. maybe 2 - 300+ quid off an equivalent 1 grand machine) I think in comparison to the US and Japan the UK is pretty steep, computer price-wise. Bearing that in mind though, the computers I was looking at were J-OS, might go up a little if you ask for English OS to be installed.. but you could ask for it OS free, then install your own copy of Windows... which, if you can be bothered with the hassle, would give a pretty decent saving over the UK.

Regarding the key placement issue.. if you had a Japanese machine with the English OS, you could install the Japanese IME, which (I'm pretty sure) would resolve the issue.

おたくですね。