As an example:

I have a desktop at home. On this system, among other things, I have a spreadsheet to catalog the wines in our 256-bottle "cellar" storage unit. I was doing some work on this for a party- sorting by vintage, removing, etc.

I usually use a laptop with remote desktop connected to this system via wireless. I was doing this with the Acer Aspire One just because I was showing it to a visiting FT friend. It became more of a chore than I wanted because I was doing a fair bit of work. Finally switched to the 12" (I think) HP laptop on the RDP to do this. It was much easier to manipulate the spreadsheet.

For simple manipulations, the netbook is fine. But it's more cumbersome with a lot to do.

By the way, the performance on the Acer for Excel (even ones resident on that system) was find and I did not notice any degradation. It's just the screen and keyboard size for more intensive work.

Cheers.