FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Getting to Rome and why it sometimes actually pays to be a nice guy.
Old Jun 19, 2005 | 1:45 am
  #17  
mckov
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 11
Originally Posted by BambooTom
Hey McKov,
Can you tell me more about the Beds on Lufthansa Biz class?
I got a free trans atlantic upgrade soon.
Thanks
Tom
Sure..

The controls are a little complex, but they have some hotkey positions.

The kickback and relax (recline) position reclines, well, lifts the bottom cushion, and raises the legrest into a position that is like an anti-gravity chair. VERY comfortable here. I'm a lumbar back sufferer, and I was very pleased.

The BED psoition takes some getting used to. It is certainly flat, but not horizontal. At first I slid down the bed, which was disconcerting. After a bit, I got used to it and found a slide-free position, curled into fetal position on my side. I slept VERY well. They have a little privacy screen designed to keep you from getting up close and personal with the pseenger next to you, but it was small enough to be useless. The cushions are a bit hard, but I am a firm bed person, so it was to my liking. Key point here is that you can sleep on your side, and that is a good thing!

Other gadgets in the seat:

POWER
One kicking features was the in-seat power. Most airlines that have in-seat power have the 'Airline adapter'... you know, the old proprietary Empower connection. That used to be fine for me, but since my trips are long, I carry a monster laptop (17" P4 3.2 Fujitsu N6010) which carries with it a 150 watt power supply. None to the airpline adapters you can buy support it. Lufthansa has good old standard outlets, so you can simply plug in your normal power supply.

INTERNET
My flight had WIFI access ($30 for the flight). It was fairly fast. I had about 256K connection, which was enough for me to do something that pretty much freaked other people out. I powered up the laptop, plugged in my bluetooth dongle, put on my bluetooth headset, loaded up Skype, and started making and taking phone calls via the net conenction ,walking up and down the aisle. It worked like a charm! I did get a couple of 'you can't use your cell phone here' comments :-)

TV
My unit didn't work, but for those that had theirs working, it was nice and big. I looked like it was a 10.4" LCD. The system runs on Windows CE, it appears that they are having many problems with the system, as rebooting was a regular thing I noticed. But then again, I have similar problems with my BMW ;-)

MEALS
The food simply sucked, but I learned long ago to eat as little in-flight as possible no matter how good or bad the food is, so no loss there.

All in all, it all boiled down to three things: The bed was great, the net was great, and the service was 1st class.

-m
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