Biz class has all the above so you will be fine there. This thread is mainly about economy class. If you do a google search for "United 747 business class" you can get a good idea what your seat will look like. A big screen and a great IFE in my opinion.

Personally, I like the rearward facing seats. Especially for sleeping.

Just got off UA896 HKG-ORD and had the 747 with wifi (aircraft #8404). I purchased the faster version which quoted at $22.99. Reception wasn't available until approximately 20k ft. We entered a few clouds in the beginning, leading to turbulence and thus loss of wifi. After this, service was available throughout the whole flight. I was sitting in the upper deck and connection speed wasn't anything to brag about. It took forever to send a picture through iMessage...

Other than that, email services, text iMessages, some Facebook, and Internet browsing were fine. I don't event want to imagine how much slower the regular Internet connection was...since the fast version is supposedly up to 3x faster.

If anyone is wondering, I forgot how much the slower version cost.

Wifi LH A340-300
 

I flew from Dusseldorf Business LH 2941 A340-300 to Miami with WiFi and i was impressed with the speed. I did have aprox. 5 mbit/s and i was video skyping, playing poker tournaments etc and was no problem at all.
When i flew back from Miami First LH 463 A380-800 to Frankfurt and did expect nothing less then atleast the same or not faster. But i was disappointed when i found out the they didnt even have wifi on that aircraft...very sad.

It costs a lot of money to install WIFI on planes. I can't imagine United is going to give free access to F and C cabins given that that's from where they anticipate getting the revenue.

Maybe it'll be like in hotels with wifi free in the cheap seats and you have to pay in FC.

I would guess that everyone would have to pay because it's relatively difficult for UA to give out special one-time-use codes to FC pax. With seat-locked IFE like DirecTV, you can easily have the equipment in F be "free" vs. paid for the Y seats. Wifi not so much.

They managed it in the lounges for years :p

I was on the same flight, but didn't opt to use wifi. The slower speed was ~$14.99. I asked the flight attendant about free service for business/first and she went to ask someone. They told her no plans for this in the near future.

So what routes is 8404 flying and has united made available the numbers of the other aircraft converted? It would be nice to know ahead of time. And now they might actually win some of my business back from delta...

Looks like ORD and SFO, HKG.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N104UA

I've found it difficult to track one specific 744 on specific routes for very long though. It seems they move them around a lot.

Look at 8421 for example: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N121UA

Used it recently on LHR->SFO (747-400)

Had a mixed experience, documented here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...w-ua-wifi.html

I just checked out the Mainline Fleet site, and am happy to see that a few A319's have wifi up and running. While this doesn't satisfy my personal dream of the ex-co 777-200ERs for our trip to Tokyo later this year, I'm extremely pleased to see progress.

Now if the 747s were getting the installation, I would consider paying a change fee to get onto one of these.

The 747s are getting the system. So are the 777s. Things may be a little slower than initially expected on some widebodies with the 787s grounded but it is happening.

Any chance the 747s or the 777s will have it by May?

Unless other airlines also go with free wifi, don't expect UA to follow, not to mention UA's close friend LH had been charging for wifi even in F and C for years.

the upgrades will take place over the next 2 years, so it will be awhile before you can reliably count on the capability. Only 1 of 23 747 presently and none of 74 777s.