My 15" Macbook Pro is too big for the space given in economy on Virgin America. Would the 13" MacBook Air fit well, or should I go for the 11" for flights?
Thanks
What space are you referring to? The 11" MBA is very convenient to use on airlines and a bit lighter than the 13" MBA.
The space between me and the seat in front of me. If the person in front leans his/her seat back, working on the 15" MacBook Pro is very uncomfortable. -- I'd rather get the 13" MacBook Air because of the bigger screen, but not if I run into cramped space problems.
I don't know how much space that is, and it varies from airline to airline. The little MBA would be perfect even in cramped space. Mine was perfectly usable on an AA flight in economy class.
Where do you typically fly? i.e. on what kind of flights would you be using this? Very long flights? Very short flights? In-between?
If I were often on very long flights, I'd get the 13" Air because those seats will typically be a bit wider, and because the 13" has a 10 hour battery life (give or take, but that should hold you on a flight over one ocean or another with breaks for naps and food). So you could spend those long hours typing away and working on whatever.
If you are talking flights of three-to-five hours with cramped seating, however, the 11" Air is the way to go. It will fit on that tray table with room to spare, and it will give you 5 hours of battery, more than enough for most flights from this city to that. I, myself, had a 13" pro and I found that on such flights even the 13" was too big and didn't work, especially when the person in the seat in front of me leaned back. But the 11" will. Good for using those few hours to edit or polish whatever you've been working on. As for the screen size...go into a store take a look at one. You may find it's crispness and clarity more than make-up for it's smallness, though, of course, it is going to be a bit of a switch after the roominess of a 15".
And if we're talking very frequent, short flights, just an hour's jump here to there on a small plane...get an iPad. Seriously. Even smaller, no lid, and very easy to switch it to whatever you want it to be for that hour in the air: your magazine, newspaper, book, game, movie, or file holder. If the flights you're on barely give you time to bring out the computer let alone type, you might as well go for the iPad 🙂
Thanks so much for that detailed answer. I mostly take flights within the country, and most of what I do involves a lot of typing (which eliminates the iPad for this use), so it looks like the MBA 11" is the way to go.
But now, of course, it looks like there will be a refreshed line of MBAs coming very soon (as the rumors have it), so I will wait to see what the new ones offer.
Thanks again
I agree with Kappy, the 11" MBA is the perfect size in economy. The 15" is going to be too big, and the 13" is going to run into issues where if the person in front of you decides to go "full recline" you'll run into a viewing angle problem.
I've personally witnessed (on two separate occasions) where a passenger's screen was damaged as a result of the seat in front of them reclining. The ensuing "discussion" was not pretty. In one case it was a 15" Dell, the second was a 13" MBP.
13" Macbook Air OK for comfortable use on flights?
