Applications need recompiling to run nativly on ARM. However you can still emulate x86 for programs that need it (with a speed penalty). Ubuntu has great suppo

Applications need recompiling to run nativly on ARM. However you can still emulate x86 for programs that need it (with a speed penalty). Ubuntu has great support for ARM. However the is an extra dimension that Arm laptops are also _much_ less standardised then x86; I would wait to see hardware compatability this this precise device.