I've had some trouble viewing my 50" plasma TV from a distance on flights (viewing it from one foot away is no fun), yet no one seems to care about me and my huge TV.

But seriously, if your laptop screen is so large that it cannot be used in a First Class seat with the seat in front of you reclined, you should use a smaller latop. You could sit in the bulkhead seat and avoid that problem, although bulkhead seating is not guaranteed whereas the size of your laptop screen is once you enter the plane.

While domestic First Class seats do not have the pitch of Business Elite, it is definitely more pitch than coach. In coach, I recline none or just a little because I know what it is like to be in the seat behind, since I am in the same situation with a seat in front of me with almost no room for recline.

There is a huge difference between a coach seat in front of me reclining and crushing my knees and a First Class seat in front of me reclining and crushing my 15" laptop screen (if I had one). I can switch to a smaller laptop; I can't reduce my height.