I recently bought a new laptop, Lenovo Z50-75, and i am very happy with it. I am now running kubuntu + windows 8 multiboot. It costed 600 € in finland then, but now you can find it for 450 €, even cheaper in central europe and USA probably. Like many Lenovo models, it came with superfish adware/spyware preinstalled, but it was easy to remove. I initially considered buying i7 version, but ended up buying AMD A10 version because of slightly better graphics card (i also use it for gaming).

Like most of you there, i think tablets are mostly procrastination devices, not good for working on doing any creative things (based on my own experience). Best tablet i ever had was the HP TouchPad, with android and webos multibooted. For first time tablet buyer, i would recommend Nexus 7, because of it's amazing price-quality ratio.

I never believed a laptop/tablet hybrid would be useful, but judging by feedback by guys here in this thread, i may be wrong.