I am buying a new... "thing" soon, and I said "thing" because I cant decide what do I want/need.
Right now, I have Asus Transformer Infinity TF700. And I absolutely love the form factor, I love having a tablet, Its the right size, right shape. But its extremely sluggish, unresponsive, and generally an Android. I bought it because It also has a keyboard so I thought I can do some light productivity on it as well. Nope, not possible on Android.
I am going to buy something else. I am still considering a PC, its simply the best, but portability is my prirority so moving away from that. Notebook.... I will probably ending up with that. But what I really want is a Windows tablet/notebook. Some kind of convertible or with a detachable keyboard. But those things have the worst price to power ratio. I want to be able to do a little bit of everything on it.
So the real question: Will some kind of full Windows 8 tablet below 700€ be able to keep up with me? What I mean by that, some light programming, gaming (at League of Legends level). And wont I end up using it only for internet browsing and video watching? Or should I just forget that beautiful form factor and go for something I know will work (a proper notebook).
With my father being the head of IT at a fairly large company, I've had the pleasure of trying a good amount of Windows 8 and RT tablets. I've used the HP, Dell, Razer and Microsoft surface (RT and Pro) and I have to say, W8 tablets are pretty awkward to use. I find that the form factor is too abstract to do any real work. Using MS office is good, but the sheer lack of tablet apps makes it a lost platform. You definitely won't be doing any gaming, but programming shouldn't be an issue.
I'm in a similar situation to you, needing a device for school next year, and I'm almost definitely picking up a notebook (probably the MBA).
Well, to be honest, if I had windows 8, the first thing I would do is install StartIsBack or whats it called. Im interested in only desktop software. I dont mind the size of the desktop interface on a 10-12 inch screen. It requires a bit more precision but I dont mind. (If its anything like using a Splashtop on my 10 inch 1080p android tablet).
I know someone with a windows 8 tablet, and the thing pretty much became the topic of our jokes for a while, its unusable without a mouse and keyboard, battery doesnt last longer than the average laptop, and its pretty much a tank when it comes to weight.
the positive thing is that (aside from the mouse and keyboard you need to bring as well) it is WAY smaller and easier to put away than the average laptop.
I have no experience on running league of legends on low-end graphics solutions (intel HD 4000 or worse) but it wont be smooth for sure, and again: mouse and keyboard to a tablet just looks plain stupid.
Personally I use a 15 inch laptop thats probably more powerful than I need (also, more bulky) but it allows me to do some programming in class, and during lunchbreaks we all sit together with our laptops (and someone with a tablet + mouse + keyboard) and have a little lan party.
If you are looking for design, and have a fat wallet to throw around, get a macbook pro, and dual boot with windows, i've seen those run skyrim with a bunch of graphical mods without any issue.
Otherwise i can suggest getting a slim windows (or linux) notebook, which are usually cheaper and faster, although they dont keep up with the macbooks batery-wise and build quality-wise.
Someone I know recently bought a last-gen laptop for €700 which can pretty much run everything at around 60-100FPS without making a lot of noise (ideal for the classroom!) and can even livestream while still running at 40-60FPS. I dont know the exact brand and model, but for productivity laptops last-gen mid-range laptops are pretty much the way to go.