In today’s mobile market, two competitors, Apple and Amazon, with the iPad and the Kindle Fire respectively, are going head to head for your business this holiday season.

The iPad is more expensive, but is slightly larger, and costs $499. The Kindle Fire is much cheaper at $199. However, the Kindle Fire has no camera, so you cannot shoot video, use it for Skype, or any form or Web chat. The Kindle Fire also has a noticeably slower processing speed. In addition, the Kindle Fire has the Amazon Cloud service working for it. The Amazon Cloud service allows the Kindle to stream content bought off of the Amazon store. The iPad also has the iCloud, which allows it to access files on your computer.

The iPad’s more expensive price tag will scare off some. When the holiday spenders arrive at the Kindle Fire, the cheaper price tag will allow people with a tighter budget to pick it up for the holidays. I would not pick up an iPad for a child, but the Kindle Fire is cheap enough to pick up for  a child, as it is less of a loss if it breaks.

I for one believe that the Kindle Fire is the future of tablet technology. While the iPad does have many advantages, it is simply too expensive to be practical. The Kindle Fire is lightweight, and has many applications for the casual user of mobile products. The Kindle Fire also allows for streaming of all the content you purchase off of Amazon. So if you use Amazon a lot, the Kindle Fire is your dream device.

The iPad is aimed at the more tech savvy, hipster demographic. The iPad’s interface is slightly more difficult to use than the Kindle Fire’s, but for most users, the Apple logo on the back will more than make up for its unintuitive user interface.

The majority of content available on the iPad will only be useful if you have already invested heavily in iTunes music or videos. I will however, credit the iPad with the better book reading software. While the animation when you turn a page is unnecessary, it adds a certain visual aesthetic that I would expect from an Apple product.

Overall, the pads are fairly evenly matched. However, I would recommend the Kindle Fire in today’s precarious economy. In the event that you do have an excess amount of cash, the iPad is the more advanced option.