Having sat on a 755 today in airline seats, which I hadn't done up until now, it becomes very clear why Greater Anglia have selected a high density seat with a big niche - because they are high density laid out.
Literally in the seat I was in my left leg was hard up against the inner edges of the niche with the right leg up against the inner edges of the other side of the niche with a few cm between them with the front of my legs against the back of the seat in front of me. It wasn't comfortable and felt a bit like an adult being strapped into a roller coaster designed for older children rather than adults.
The seats themselves are not bad comfort wise and even pleasing in the table seats, especially in the raised sections, although the window seats suffer from having too much sticking out near your legs in places which means your feet end up resting on a boiling hot heater.
The PIS is good, even if it does flick about a bit too much for my liking which can be distracting, the ride quality is alright (but hard to tell on local lines) and the toilets seem to work. Doors seemed to be slow to open after pressing buttons though and the PA had a lot of interference and could hear the outdoors a lot during announcements.
I like the trains overall but the seating layout is poor. Too many seats have been shoved in these trains and the LEAN seat was ordered to do this. If they went for a Grammer seat as originally planned with no niche it would probably be physically impossible to sit straight in the seat in airline with the same layout. Without the Niche the LEAN would be intolerable, now it just about is for short hops, but for long hops, need a table seat or a extra space one.
All in all a good train interior wise, let down by poor cramped seating layout, which was my fear from day one when I saw the plans. If you're short or average they're probably fine.
Are all the non priority airline seats the same or are some better than others?
