MBP17 On Plane

Bad idea? Going to be flying for 8 hours towards vacation and being able to watch movies on a decent sized screen or play Minecraft is greatly appealing.

Also, being able to transfer photos and videos on vacation seems like a good idea.

However, I'm not sure it'll fit on a standard fold out tray... I've never taken a laptop while traveling and I'm not even sure if it's a wise idea.

Anyone want to voice some opinions?

 

A 17" laptop isn't exactly ideal in the confines of economy class, but as long as the laptop is well protected from sudden shocks and impact/pressure to the screen while it is stored away, it should be fine. Oh, and be very cautious with that laptop. Any thief would love to get their hands on a machine like that.

 

You'll be cramped to fit it on your tray. You'll probably have to put it on your lap. I have a 14.1" Thinkpad T410 and it barely fits on the tray. It's times like this when I wished I had a smaller size laptop (like a 11-13").

Also, I always put my laptop bag below the seat in front of you. That way it's much harder to steal it.

 

Unless the thief is sitting in front of you.

 

As others pointed out, the tray is going to be an extremely tight fit. I would even venture to say that portions of the notebook are going to be hanging off the sides of the tray. I took my 17" Dell XPS on a plane back in 2006 and it was hanging off of the right and left sides along with the front all by about 1.5-2". A 13" MBP would be able to fit on a standard airline tray and maybe have enough room for a drink (though I wouldn't do that as any little bump could tip the drink over onto the computer).

That is why, whenever I fly now, I just use my iPad 2. The 9.7" display is small but it also fits really nice on an airline tray with ample room all around it. In fact, the last time I flew (about a week ago), I was able to prop my iPad 2 up to watch a movie and still had room for my drink and those little TV dinner "full meal" things.

So the 17" is probably going to be delegated to your lap and, since you can't put your feet up, the experience isn't going to be all that comfortable (that and MBP's run kind of hot so your legs might get a little toasty).

 

You really don't want to carry that on vacation if possible. It's really a DTR and really isn't meant to fly (unless you get 1st Class). Let alone having to be secured where ever you are staying (making sure it can fit in those hotel safes). Unless you really want to carry it all over with you.

You can do the photo and video xfer with 13" or with 11" MBA.

Just one more thing watch movies on that screen just 5 inches from your eyes will give you a headache. To really enjoy the movie you need more that 12".

Less it best when traveling.

 

I recently took a trip and had difficulty seating my mbp13 on the tray. If the person in front of you decides to recline his chair, your space drastically shrinks too. Of course, if you fly first class then you'll have no problem whatsoever.

 

I travel by plane with my 17" laptops very frequently. I just never open them on the plane I have a smartphone and other such devices if I need some gameing or ebook reading entertainment. I use my smartphone (its an android fyi) with dropbox to access important files that cannot wait for me till I land. It is a tiny screen of course compared to a laptop (4.3" vs 17") but it gets the job done. And dropbox syncs from my phone to my laptops and other machines automatically.

This is where I can see a tablet being handy. hmmm which one

 

I highly recommend this to anyone taking a notebook on a plane. I've had it for years and it works like a charm. Including a 17 inch MBP or even a 18.4 inch Sony AW.

Laptop Stand $19.99 Recycled Compact Lightweight FREE SHIPPING OFFER

I got the pink one.

 

To be honest it's hard for anyone to give an exact response. I've flown in MANY aircraft in economy, business, first class and definitely economy is very unreliable. Depending on the type of plane the tray length can differ greatly to where even a 11" MBA has difficulty fitting to others where 17" are comfortable

Your best bet is to find out the plane model and do research based on that.

 

Unless you are a very short person and/or a child I would think you would be insane to try to use anything larger than a 13" Macbook Air or similar on a plane. Chances are, on a long flight, the person in front of you is going to recline...which it makes it even that much harder. And a 17"? LOL forget it. I travel twice a week for work and I cannot recall ever seeing anyone with a laptop that big being used on a plane. It's just not going to happen.

I'd say forget the laptop and get an iPad or Xoom.

 

I've used my 1645 on a Boeing 737 and it fit on the tray in front of me with a bit of the edges off but it wasn't going anywhere. West Jet has fairly large trays so your experience may differ

 

I have one. it will fit, though it will probably be slightly wider than the seat tray. I have one and fly with it all the time.

 

It's not just a problem of width. If the person in front of you suddenly decides to recline back, depending on the angle at which you have your laptop open, there's a real possibility that the laptop screen might get caught against the edge of the tray recess on the back of the seat.

 

Right. Then, when you go to pull the notebook closer, you find that it is now sitting up against your stomach and you still have no room to do anything on the tray other than use the notebook. There is a reason why tablets are taking over for people who travel. I think I came across over 40 iPads/other tablets the last time I flew a couple of weeks ago. They are fast replacing even small notebooks. I saw a few netbooks and even a handful of ~13" notebooks but I came across far more tablets this last time around.

 

That happened to me once and I thought it was going to snap my screen in half. On most connecting flights, given the smaller aircraft, it's probably also pretty hard to fit a 11.6 or 12" laptop screen on the tray.

Yeah, I've definitely seen an increase in tablets. The form factor of a tablet is definitely a lot better for travel on planes given the small room you have. Tablets are definitely going to replace netbooks, smaller laptops, and even music players for travelling.

 

ok Im going to get out my flame suit. for a recent family trip I found a full fledged desktop OS tablet my most ideal solution
I'm not a fan of the iOS and Android tablets because I find them pretty limiting. so if you dont mind something right out of left field I love my Iconia W500 tablet for doing some work and such on the road and flights. ( if your flight is more than 5 hours make sure you can use your charger )

but I have to agree with the ones that say it depends on your flight, I can use my 17" on westjet and Singapore airlines... but many others just not enough room

 

At this point in time, I agree. In the near future, the landscape will change and many developers are busy conjuring making applications specific for tablet use. Its a relatively young frontier still, and there is a lot of work to be done, but I think Android tablets are making significant headway in becoming more fully-fledged. For iOS, Apple is way behind here IMO. iOS is far behind in terms of being classified a tablet OS.

 

you have that problem with any laptop, bro.

 

Although both iOS and Honeycomb are more limiting than Windows or OS X, they are still very capable mobile OS's. Additionally, with the right amount of apps, one can pretty much get the same experience out of a slate tablet as they do a notebook. For example, when I am on flights, I mainly watch movies and TV shows. It is essentially the same experience on my iPad 2 as it is on my MBP. I will check my e-mail and surf the web when I get to my hotel room and again, it is pretty much the same experience on both platforms. I take my iPad 2 to a meeting and can record hand written notes in an app that is better than anything I experienced with my Toshiba tablet convertible that ran Windows XP Tablet. So even someone like myself is finding that I don't sacrifice much by taking my iPad 2 with me instead of my 13" MBP. Average non-power users really won't notice a difference as they will just want to check facebook, check their e-mail, and play Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja.

Also, to the person that said iOS is still far from being a tablet OS, well, I disagree with that as well. The OS might not be as advanced as Android but iOS has always been like this (even dating back to when it was called iPhone OS). Android has always been more advanced than iOS and I doubt that is going to change. The aspect that iOS has over Android is that it has far more apps for it. iOS for the iPad also has many more tablet centric apps for it than Honeycomb does. Not only that but the apps tend to be a better experience on the iPad 2 than on a Xoom or other similar Android tablet. So the OS itself might be limited but it offers far more apps and a better app experience. That is where iOS pulls ahead as people buy tablets to run apps. The underlying OS doesn't really matter if it can't backup the experience with a solid library of apps.

Well, I didn't mean for this to turn into a tablet discussion. I think that Honeycomb has come a long way in the short time it has been on the market but it still has much more to go before it even begins to really compete with iOS. Apple had that one year head start with the iPad and it will be hard to close that gap (especially since the first iPad is still actually better than many Android tablets despite using older, slower hardware).