Black Friday is near and that usually means huge discounts await shoppers, especially for tech devices and electronic gadgets. Although everyone seems to be agonizing over the difficult decision as to what brand of TV, smartphone, or laptop computer to purchase, there's one product that could very well become part of the mainstream Black Friday shopping list — the smart speaker.

Very few people will argue that there are virtually only two fiercely competing options in this segment: the Amazon Echo and the Google Home. So which of these two is the best smart speaker to purchase heading into the Black Friday sale and Christmas shopping season?

First, the Amazon Echo is the more experienced smart speaker, having been on the market since last year; while the Google Home was introduced this year to become the Echo's major competitor in a fast-growing consumer market for the smart speaker in the United States and Canada.

Both devices actually carry with them the same functionality, including answering questions, playing music, controlling smart home devices, finding smartphones and tablet devices, setting the time, and other stuff linked to voice commands.

According to a review from Komando, one of the biggest conveniences of the Echo is that voice logs can be reviewed over iOS and Android using the Alexa app. So if any device running on iOS or Android is present at home, it means the recordings can be saved and listened to at a later time. As for Home, recordings can likewise be saved through the Google Home app which can be downloaded for both Android and iOS. However, it is worthy of mention that there is no telling right now if the recordings are kept on secured and protected servers once users save them using their respective apps.

When it comes to pricing, the latest Echo Dot variant of Amazon's line of Echo smart speakers is priced at $41.67 while the larger Echo costs $180. Meanwhile, the new Google Home is priced around $130. Nonetheless, these tags can change due to discounts and bundled deals expected on Black Friday.