So you're off on (another) business trip. You've settled into your seat on the plane, with many hours stretching ahead of you.

You reach into your carry-on bag and pull out – what? An iPad? A Kindle? The latest issue of your favourite magazine, or a book?

I'm guilty of packing two and sometimes three of the above: an iPad, a Kindle and a magazine. Yes, that mitigates against my penchant for travelling light.

But these days the iPad is almost a must-have for my travels and is best for digital editions of magazines and newspapers (such as catching up on The Sydney Morning Herald each day using the superb SMH iPad app) alongside its many other functions.

The Kindle offers an experience that's optimised for books, while the device itself is far easier to read and lighter to hold than the iPad.

And now and again I'll grab a copy of a favourite magazine to dive into through during the in-flight downtime – something I too-rarely indulge in back on terra firma.

But I long ago gave up on taking books on my travels. They demand too much carry-on space – especially with the trend towards larger print sizes, spacey layout and hence more pages per tome – and as a fast reader, knocking over one book during the flight means I'm carrying dead weight for the rest of the trip.

And if I don't finish the book before I land, I almost certainly won't have time to read it once that my work begins.

On the other hand, fellow AusBT journalist John Walton favours paper over pixels. "I do a lot of screen-reading all day, so it's nice to pick up a book at the end of the day" he says.

"A paperback tucked into my carry-on (usually something easy and accessible, like a mindless thriller or quirky comedy) is a better option for me than a magazine. There's very little that I'm interested in that isn't online these days, and I'd rather open up a few browser tabs containing a magazine article or save a webpage in the lounge for later reading on my laptop."

But John's iPad doesn't get a look-in on flights. "I travel with a tiny 11-inch MacBook Air laptop, which is about the same size as the iPad. So I very rarely end up bringing the iPad with me on trips any more. It's just one more device to keep charged."

So now we're throwing this over to AusBT readers: what's your choice of in-flight reading, and why?

Click on our poll and then share more details in the Comments box below!