Sadly, of course, their CEOs are often blind to this. It's a CEO's job to be the biggest fan of his or her own brand. They believe they can get away with it.

If you lay down almost $1000 on an Apple tablet, at least you get to look smug. Some people will think you're an idiot, of course, but many more will nod sagely and secretly understand your insanity.

But laying down almost $1000 on a piece of Motorola hardware--from the same company that makes the cheap phone your mom uses because she doesn't know about technology? I'd argue that nearly everybody would think you're an idiot, no matter how hard you argue that the tech specs are superb.

You might disagree with my assessment, of course.

These are early days for the tablet computing field and what's on offer at the moment really does push the boundaries of current technology, so I can forgive high prices to a limit.