If you personally don't care for them that's fine, but the x230 is about the same weight as a macbook air. It's also one of the only ultra portables that you can add ram and an ssd to on your own. If you can get past the design (many of us actually prefer it) then an x230 with an ssd and 16gb ram is a pretty compelling option.

Agreed with comment above. I recently bought ThinkPad x230 with ivy bridge processor, 128GB SSD and 8 GB RAM. The weight would be around 3 pounds. I doubt if any other machine (ultra book/air) would beat this in any performance benchmark.

I just took a look and read some reviews, impressive specs. but still hate the design, this doesn't look like a slim computer. really love the specs, but unfortunately hate the design/look.