Today is the day many Windows fans have been waiting for, the announcement of ARM-based Windows laptops. Asus pulled back the covers on its new NovaGo laptop and I was able to spend a little bit of time with the device.

Specs include up to 8GB of RAM, up to 256 Gb of storage, 13.3in display and support for gigabit LTE. But the real deal here are the claims of 20hrs of battery life and 30 days of standby; not holding my breath here but I’ll remain an optimist until we can fully test the hardware.

In use, the machine felt snappy but not fast. What I mean is that for browsing the web, checking and sending email, and other similar tasks, this machine will handle those tasks easily. But I don’t believe that high-end tasks like video and photo editing will run well on this type of hardware and with a starting price of $599, it’s going to compete with low-end Intel chips which appears to have roughly the same level of performance.

The laptop itself felt like it had solid build quality but the HP that I played with earlier in the day was definitely more premium in the materials department. That being said, the NovaGo, based on my initial impressions, appears to be a good entry-level type machine.

Having now played with two different ARM-based devices, I do believe some of Microsoft’s hype from earlier in the year that this type of hardware will be a big win for Windows. Of course, these devices all use the Snapdragon 835 chip and announced on stage after the unveiling of this new device was the better, faster, and more secure Snapdragon 845.

Tagged with ASUS, NovaGo