Surface RT for school and business.

I've been thinking about getting an ultrabook or maybe even a Surface Pro for school purposes since my current laptop runs for about an hour on the battery and weighs 8 pounds. I'm an English major so I don't need to be coding or doing any graphic design work, but would the RT and a touchcover work as a decent note taking/paper writing/web browsing tablet? I have a first gen iPad but that's almost useless for me anymore.