I haven't done much testing of ARM versus Intel, but the experience that I do have with ARM, compiling software wise, using an i.MX6Q (Freescale), it takes roughly 3 1/2 hours (softfloat) to build Firefox 15.
While the current market of ARM devices won't win any speed tests, there are more features to it than just power consumption. My mx51 netbook has no moving parts and doesn't burn my legs even when its been running a long compile (such as Firefox) versus the Core i7 I have that can build it much faster however it cuts the battery life almost in half. There is also the fan noise when those cores start churning, not to mention the heat.