I just got off of the new interior aircraft. Got bumped to Business Premier Luxe, because I had a high fare ticket. I had a high fare ticket because the NZ cancelled by original flight because I of grounded air craft due to the P&W engine issue I believe. The rebooking process (ticket issuer's responsibility) bumped the fare basis up apparently. So, one could say that this review is brought to you by P&W.
First, they continue to provide the cushion which makes sleeping so much more comfortable. (Side note, I have not issue with the old NZ product, because I really just care about the cushion, and sleep, and that the width was so good for sleeping.) So, I am happy.
Paired my BLE headset with the screen. Great.
Wifi was also easy to use and provided quite good bandwidth from what I could tell.
The privacy screens were nice, although it really is not a big thing for me.
The meal tray mechanism looks complicated and prone to breaking but time will tell.
Overall very very nice. Plus space for someone to have meal with me, although I suspect that this is a rarely used feature on the old layout and may continue to be here, but the extra space is nice.
The layout for the charger port is good with a small tray above to put the things that you are charging. There is some storage space, but not big enough for a laptop, unless I am missing something. Perhaps that is intentional.
So, the niggling issues:
1) Screen alignment and angle.
- The screen is perfectly aligned for the business premier seat. Not so with the Luxe seat. The screen is further out and to the side. Not much one could do about that.
- The screen is at the same angle as for the business premier seat from what I could tell. Could they have not changed the tilt to point towards the seat? As well, because the screen is tilted towards the window (I was in a window seat; Double thanks P&W!) you get the light from the wind reflected in your eyes.
2) High gloss screen
- Did I mention that it is a high gloss screen. So, sharp image, but lots of reflections. So, bring you polarized lens filters?
3) Movie menu
- No search function and no alphabet organization. Yah got to manually search through a whole lot of films. Yes, there are some categories, but still. I assume that this will change with a software update.
4) Buggy software
- I locked up my monitor (distance to destination on handheld disappeared too.) by playing with the map feature. Enabled the 3D map feature, was scrolling left and right, and noticed that the aircraft stopped moving in this mode, to left map mode and returned, and my pointer disappeared. Crew rebooted the display, but it was the end of the trip, so I do not know how it went.
Overall, quite impressed. Definitely a nice business class product.
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