"Just set it up" isn't as easy as you make it out to be. I just tried it in Android Studio.
First, you have to install a 3rd party kernel extension (from Intel). Then you have to configure an AVD with the new x86 value for the CPU/ABI field. It didn't appear for some reason for my target "Android 4.4.2". After looking around, I found another download in the Android SDK Manager called "Intel x86 Atom System Image", let's download that. The documentation mentions this, but I glossed over it. OK, back to the AVD manager and create a virtual device.
Now I finish it, and run the app. Running the app takes 39 seconds, as Grails reports (about 5 seconds, if that, on Xcode for the iOS port of our project). It asks where I want to run it, pick the new AVD and click Run. It starts Android but not the app.
Weird. OK, so I run it again with the simulator running. The option "choose a running device" cannot be selected. That's strange. I pick the new AVD again and unfortunately, it starts another copy. Shit. I let it boot but notice it's really slow as usual -- ten minutes later it's still booting. I check the already running copy and click around. Slow as hell as well. Apparently it's not accelerated at all!
At this point, I'm ready to give up and go back to testing on a device again.
The above is tested on a 2013 MacBook Air with 8 gigs of memory.