Spring Design’s Alex eReader is a duo-screen Android media player and EPD e-reader on a slate, not a folder like the enTourage eDGe, but rather akin to the Barnes & Noble Nook. The Alex shipped a few weeks ago. Two reviewers praised it for relatively fast performance but denounced its $399 price and tiny selection of books.

Laptop Mag: K.T. likes the Alex’s sleek enclosure, although the back/forward buttons are placed too far down. Typing on the 3.5″ color on-screen keyboard is responsive to taps but shows a slight delay when registering them. All navigation happens, as it should, on the smaller LCD, while the 6″ (800×600) EPD screen is reserved for text. Basic Android applications work as they should, but since the Alex is not a phone, it omits Gmail, Google Maps, and Android Market, so there is no way to download apps from Google’s gargantuan store. Spring Design is opening an online store in June and has over 40 developers working on new applications and modifying existing ones. The EPD screen is quick for e-books and works as a display for Android’s Browser; unfortunately, not all web content is shown crisply because EPD is colorless. Syncing between the LCD and the EPD does not work for third-party software. For reading, page turns are 1.5 seconds, and text, in 8 shades of gray, is sharp and easy on the eyes. The note-taking and annotation synchronization between the EPD and the LCD is handled much better than on the enTourage eDGe. Internet and Android usage are fairly fast with the 600MHz Marvell CPU and wireless G. The speakers are pleasantly loud enough. Battery life is solid at 6 hours with the LCD and wireless active.

Engadget: the Alex is light and compact. Joanna claims that it has a 3.5mm jack, but Laptop Mag rues that it does not! Both the EPD and LCD look about on par with competitors. Contrary to K.T., Joanna prefers the eDGe’s interface, which uses its E-Ink screen and the LCD, whereas the Alex is LCD only. The lowly 256Mb internal storage is a downer, but included is a 2Gb microSD card. Joanna loves the responsive capacitive touchscreen and the ability to save webpages from the EPD as PDF. Android 2.0 is scheduled to be available this summer, but without access to Android Market, the only upgrade will be the sweeter icons and menus. Multi-tasking is not recommended because it slows the Alex down, but general use is fairly quick compared to the eDGe and the Nook.

Conclusions: Laptop Mag gives the Alex a respectable 3.5/5, praising its multimedia capabilities and portability but $399 is a lot for an e-reader that does not yet have an apps store. Engadget tells us to wait for the 3G version, and for when more books and the Alex store are ready; otherwise, save $140 and get the Nook or the Kindle, both of which include 3G standard.