Travel Technology - 15 vs 17 laptop for on board use

I have a little 12" laptop (x60 lenovo) which is great for email in the hotel, but I need a large screen to get real work done. How are everyone's thoughts on a 17" screen for onboard use? too big?

Do you normally fly in first, business or coach? In coach 17 inch might be too big.

I own a 17'' MacBook Pro, but I seldom try to use my laptop while on a plane. If you fly in business or first class often, it is okay to have a larger laptop. A 17'' laptop doesn't run that long on battery power alone. It is hard to have a 15'' or 17'' laptop open if the guy in front of you is reclining in economy.

My only computer is a 17" laptop. (It's a Mac PowerBook, as it happens, but size differences between brands and models are small compared to the difference between anybody's 17" and anybody's 15".) I travel with it. More of my travel than I might wish is in the small seats.

I find it workable. It's difficult to juggle the laptop and a drink at the same time, so I generally get soft drinks in cans and put them next to me on the seat. (So far no accidents, but if I had one, my clothes and the seat would suffer less long-term damage than my laptop would have.) The issue is more screen height, seat pitch, and recline (yours and the seat in front) than width. It helps to be skinny, which I am. If my belly was much bigger, a large laptop in coach might not be workable.

We just traveled last week with a new 17" laptop in coach all the way (ANC-SEA-MCO and return on packed planes) with no problems.

It's generally not the height of the laptop that's the issue - a larger screen seems to be more of problem with width. If you can manage a 15" laptop height wise on a plane, a 17" shouldn't be a major problem. As mentioned above, judging with of laptop plus beverage is where the real judgement lies.

After traveling with a 15" laptop for a couple of years (more often than not in FC), I went to a 14" Lenovo T43 when the time came for a new one... and that was a deliberate downsize. I find the difference, however small objectively, to make it much more convenient for in-flight work... heck, when folks in FC recline into your lap the space gets cramped. And it is also that much easier to fit into a smaller laptop carry case.

Sitting here in the home office now and have never felt the need for anything larger. Much of my life is wrapped around website reviews and power point presentations and the 14" screen is just fine for both. Yes, I enjoy a larger screen when I do work on one but for overall moving around the country, this size is just fine.

I found 17 inch too big for me. For me it was more a weight issue than size.
I schlep a ton of stuff with me so every pound counts

I'd go for 15.4".
I have a 17" one and it's not really up to it...Battery gets drained too quickly and it's too heavy. Screen size is not a major problem even in economy, but I find it's better to have it on your lap (watch out for burns!) as opposed to the traytable.

Not sure if you plan to use the on-board power ports, but most of the Empower-style systems (and AA's system as well) only put out 70-75 watts. My laptop has a 14.1" screen and it is excellent for text, graphics and for watching DVDs as well (and it is nice to exit the plane with a fully-charged battery :)

Another option is to consider the greater resolution of an SXGA screen (rather than the "standard" XGA).

I have one of each... a 15 and a 17... and without a doubt it is much easier to use the 15 in coach. In first class, the 17 is great.

I would recommend the 15". Sure, 17 will work, but it's a heck of a lot easier with the smaller one.

I would recommend the 15". Sure, 17 will work, but it's a heck of a lot easier with the smaller one.

I'll second that - however what about widescreen vs. normal sizes?

It probably also depends on what you are going to do - watch a movie on a 17" widescreen display is probably no problem at all, but working on a 17" monitor in Y? No thanks..

IMHO the smaller the better for a travel laptop, so i would go for the lightest 15.4 inch laptop you can find.

I traveled for about 6 months with a 6.5lb 15.4" laptop. If I wasn't in an aisle seat, just getting it out and on to the tray table in coach was a hassle. Width was problematic (took the whole tray table, or more on RJs). The real problem was depth. To get an appropriate viewing angle the front of the computer was often jammed into my stomach (and I'm not a huge guy). I replaced it with a 4lb 14" Gateway which lasted about a year and now a 14" 5lb Dell Latitude D630. Both are a much better size for plane use (though still not the easiest to whip out on an RJ) and the weight savings is appreciated too (the Gateway was the perfect size but couldn't handle the abuse, the Dell is a little heavier but can take a beating).

All said, 14" is the sweet spot in usable screen size vs. coach seat friendly. If I were in the awful condition of being RJ exclusive I'd probably end up with an Eee.

Do you normally fly in first, business or coach? In coach 17 inch might be too big.

Except for bulkheads/exit row and maybe E+ or similar, 17" is almost certainly too big.

With MRTC, 14.1" non-wide/15.4" wide was *just* useable on most American flights if the person ahead didn't recline; now with LRTC it's hard to use 14.1" wide.

All said, 14" is the sweet spot in usable screen size vs. coach seat friendly. If I were in the awful condition of being RJ exclusive I'd probably end up with an Eee.

I find the 14.1 (D620) very cramped in coach... useable, if barely, on AA, too cramped to use on CX. I've seen some nice 13.3" wides which would be an improvement (and not too-small-to-read like the 12.1" wides) but as far as I can tell they're all consumer-grade models (Dell XPS and Sony) and probably not up to heavy use on the road.