Hasta La Gadget!

It used to be that “convergence” meant putting two different (but hopefully complementary) devices into the same case. Scratch that. This still happens today, as proved by the Alex, a long box with an e-book reader in one end and an Android-powered cellular device in the other. The dual-screen device, from a company called Spring Design, is like a Pop-Tart with jelly in one end and baloney in the other.

The Alex (we have no idea about that name) aims to strike a balance between the full-color, fully responsive LCD screen at the bottom, used for web surfing, and the e-ink panel above, used for reading books. The idea is that once you have found what you like, you can send it upstairs and kill the battery-guzzling color part, reading the content on the eye and battery friendly e-ink screen. It also goes the other way, with links in the e-ink display opening pictures and video in the color one. This is called “dynamic hyperlinked multimedia information” and was sent through time to the Spring research labs from 1995.

Aside from the ugly design (and that damned name) it’s a fine idea, let down by one thing. Most of us have a cellphone already, or at least some kind of portable device that can both browse the web and save longer articles to the Instapaper service, which lets you hit a bookmark to convert articles into text and read them later, on a web browser, the iphone, or even have them emailed to your Kindle.

The other problem with two screens (despite the inevitable hit to battery life) is that the Alex is big, as in long and tall. We’d much rather have a bigger, single e-paper screen. As it is you get 6-inch e-ink display and a 3-inch color display. To rephrase, you get a Kindle and an iPhone screen in one, only without all the extra functions.

Spring says it “has been working with major book stores, newspapers and publishers over the past two years.” Remember the hot rumor that a Barnes and Noble device would be showing up soon and feature two screens, one color and one of electronic ink? This could well be it. One thing that is certain is that this won’t be the last goofy e-book design. We have a long way to go before natural selection gives us a design as perfect as the paper book itself. Price and launch date to be announced.

Product page [Spring Design. Thanks, Eric!]