Once that expires, though, you'll need to pony up, at which point Office for iPad will count toward a new five-tablet limit -- not your five PC/Mac limit. As you may have gathered by now, this is all par for the course for Microsoft, though it's worth pointing out that Apple offers its iWork suite for free on iOS devices purchased on or after September 1st, 2013. And it's a fairly feature-rich suite, too.

What's especially interesting about Office for iPad is that it's not just a blown-up version of the iPhone version, which we pooh-poohed for offering a watered-down feature set. Here, Microsoft was careful to take advantage of the iPad's extra screen real estate: whereas the iPhone version wouldn't even let you add rows in the middle of a spreadsheet, the iPad edition includes advanced features like Sparklines and author blocking, which only power users might appreciate. Throughout, too, you'll find an impressive array of formatting options, including custom text colors, dozens of PowerPoint transitions and a full suite of fonts. In PowerPoint, there's also a presenter mode where you can write off-handed remarks in "white board mode" and use your finger as a laser pointer (though that last feature doesn't seem that useful, at least not without AirPlay support). Excel, meanwhile, brings a custom numerical keyboard alongside the traditional QWERTY one. And of course, all the apps rock the ol' Ribbon UI -- it wouldn't be an Office product without the Ribbon.

Update: Our review of Office for iPad is now live. Check it out!