Last year Intel Atom powered netbooks were all the rage at Computex. This year, it’s mini-laptops with ARM processors, like the Wistron N900Z. Laptop Magazine’s Joanna Stern  got a chance to check out this little laptop with a Freescale i.MX515 ARM-based processor running at 800MHz.

As you’d expect, the system is a bit sluggish compared to Atom power netbooks when it comes to booting the operating system (Ubuntu Linux, in this case), or launching applications. But it’s good enough to power a web browser, and if you expect to use a cheap ARM based mini-notebook primarily for surfing the web, that may be all you need.

Since the CPU uses less power than most x86 chips, the Wistron N900z is expected to get around 8 hours of battery life from a 3 cell battery.