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The ebook reader market certainly looks to be heating up quite a bit as of late.  There’s the new international version of the Kindle 2, Plastic Logic teasing us with a new reader, Sony’s new readers and tomorrow’s Barnes & Noble announcement among others.  Today, we can add another name to that list: Spring Design.  Spring Design looks to have beaten B&N’s announcement by a day, announcing a device similar to the bookstore’s rumored ebook reader.

Spring Design’s new design brings two screen to an ebook reader and not in the notebook fashion like Asus’ design.  The Spring Design device, Alex, will feature a 6” e-ink display for reading large blocks of text.  It will also feature a 3.5” LCD touchscreen below that screen that will be used for functions such as web browsing.  The bottom screen will be powered by Android.  The device will have Wi-Fi as well as a 3G data connection, though no carrier is named yet.  All we know so far is the name of the device, its features and design.

Spring Design’s Alex looks to bring an interesting dynamic to ebook readers.  Sure, the battery life on it might not be as great as an e-ink only device, but that’s a small price to pay.  There’s a number of possible ways the two displays can interact, and it makes for a device that can have a keyboard for searching without having the ugliness of having to have a physical keyboard.  Spring Design has said that this isn’t the B&N ebook reader, which is supposed to have similar features to the Alex, and yet be cheaper than the Kindle.  If this is where ebook readers are going, I might just have to go out and buy one soon.

Read [Spring Design]