Spring Design Alex is a potentially groundbreaking dual screen design, though we'll wait until we get our hands on one and see the price its marketed at. The Alex is a similar design to the Barnes & Noble Nook, with a dual screen design--a 6 inch e-ink display on top and a 3.5 inch color LCD touchscreen on the bottom. This bottom screen is considerably larger than the Nook's, making it the "longest looking" eBook reader we're aware of. The Alex is the first Google Android-based ebook device to allow full internet browsing over WiFi or mobile 3G networks. There is even a function to "print" the browser on the LCD bottom to the top e-ink display, which can also be done from older, cached pages. Spring Design poetically dub this setup Duet Navigator. It remains to be seen how useful the small browser screen will be--it could be that this eReader is trying to do too much by doubling as a netbook, but we suspect the browsing ability will still be a welcome asset.
We've yet to see how the Alex will work in practice, but it should have access to the Android marketplace for applications and such. The Alex will have a removable SD card aimed at allowing users to expand their text with multimedia "add on" editions. The videos, images, and notes can be accessed as "web grabs" or with custom text created by the user or other secondary authors related to the subject being displayed. Users can create their own graphic or text content and capture them to augment the original text. The process uses Link Notes, Alex’s multimedia authoring tool to enhance multimedia publishing.
The Alex will have full audio capabilities, with speakers as well as a headphone jack (and earbuds included). Spring Design claims that their new Armada chip will cut the screen refresh rate a third over the eReader norm to .3 seconds. If so, this will be by far the quickest eReader on the market. We're unsure about battery life, but we do understand you can turn off the power-guzzling LCD when not in use and stick with the low power e-ink display for regular reading.
Spring Design announced the Alex on October 19, 2009 (originally to be sold by yearend, but we now expect it sometime in early 2010), but had issued a patent for such a dual screen device with "touch and extend" capability back in 2007. On November 2, Spring Design filed an intellectual property violation lawsuit claiming Barnes & Noble misappropriated trade secrets and violated the parties’ non-disclosure agreement by copying Alex’ features into its recently announced Nook.
Spring Design Inc. was founded in 2006 and is located in Fremont, California with engineering offices in Taiwan and China.
Connecting: We're not certain what the final configuration of the Alex will be, but it is believed to have a micro USB 2.0 port for connection and charging. It is also slated to have WiFi as well as 3G connectivity, though it is unknown whether it will have a free connection as with the Kindle, or some sort of subscription model.
Accessories: We are as yet uncertain about what accessories will be included or what optional ad-ons will be available.
Price: The price of the Spring Design Alex, as well as any subscription fee, is as yet unknown.
The Alex may be a groundbreaking design, but we'll reserve judgment until we see the pricing and how it works in practice.
eBook Reader Basics