Intel-based devices can run the full range of Android apps, even ones
that were originally written for the ARM architecture. However, if an
app contains ARM-specific code, then it must be translated before it
can be executed.
This takes time and energy to do, so battery life and overall
performance may suffer. Whether this is a serious problem is up for
debate: our reviews indicate that Intel does tend to trail behind ARM
in battery life, but the gap isn’t huge, and overall performance is
generally very good.
At any rate, Intel is working hard to encourage developers to produce
Intel-native versions of their apps, so hopefully translation will
become progressively less of an issue.