In short, I think the X240 improves incrementally on its predecessors, but the rest of the market has moved fast enough that it's behind the curve now.

Slightly longer:

For $1000 today, I can get a Macbook Air with:

- An SSD

- Twice the battery life (yeah, the X240 has nice removable batteries, but that kind of defeats the point of an ultraportable)

- A higher res screen that's only half an inch bigger

- A far nicer trackpad

- A nicer graphics chipset

I'd be giving up:

- Alloy roll cage and spill protection

- Powerbridge (hot-swappable batteries)

- A touch screen/digitizer (an Intuos2 ($40 from ebay) fills that gap nicely for me)

I don't think the X240 is a bad laptop, but, right now, the costs far outweigh the benefits.