[prsutherland]

It used to be the opposite. You could tell which was the "better" product by choosing the one with the worst appearance. The train of thought went something like, assuming the companies paid the similar amount to develop the products and the design and engineering cost a significant amount of money, then the company that didn't put the money in design put it in engineering. So uglier products were better engineered, prettier products were crap. Lenovo/IBM laptops are one of my favorite surviving examples of this phenomenon.

[keithpeter]

"Lenovo/IBM laptops are one of my favorite surviving examples of this phenomenon."

That is a bit harsh!

"Sapper proposed a design inspired by the Shōkadō bentō, a traditional black-lacquered Japanese lunch box."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad#Industrial_design

[davidism]

The split second decision for me is, "Does it look really nice or does it look really plain/bad." If it's somewhere in between then it takes a bit longer to evaluate.