3 things to factor in that will truly dictate how good Surface does.
1. Price point. There is no way Microsoft can expect this to work if it is over price. Granted, from what we have seen, this tablet looks to be built very solid with very good specs but the market isnt there for overpriced tablets no matter how good they are. You have a base Ipad at $400, and a now the Nexus 7 with a Terga 3 chip in it for $200 (7in screen but still packs a lot for the price point). $400 would be great but I see a base RT coming in at $500 if they plan to compete and steal some Ipad users
2. Stability. No way you steal Ipad users if this works like a windows pc that crashes apps and is easy to catch a virus (spam, malware). No way to justify paying as much or more then a Ipad if this thing doesnt run very smooth.
3. Ecosystem. RT is a tablet but still has the Windows OS at its core, as a result, may and more games and apps that would work on the desktop (with in the limits of the processor and graphics) should work on this. On top of optimized tablet versions of WP apps. I know this is asking a lot, but I always felt if any OS could do it, it would be Windows. And please let those who want to hack into their tablet and void the warranties, hack in and unlock it to take it to its limits.