Spring Design Alex still not available for pre-order, 'early spring' ship date still planned
By Joanna Stern 
posted March 8th 2010 8:07PM
posted March 8th 2010 8:07PM
The first week of March may have brought warmer weather and an awesome episode of the Engadget Show, but unfortunately we're still missing a Spring Design Alex pre-order page. The company had promised to have its dual-screen, 3.5-inch Android and 6-inch e-ink e-Reader ready last week after the original February delay, but we've now been told that there were some slight issues with the order page and that it should be up within the "next week or two," and Spring Design still plans to have the reader in customer's hand's by "early spring." We've got no choice but to wait, but we can tell you we are looking forward to this whole spring thing in general.
Alex, you lose! need to hurry it up or you will be swallowed by all the iPantypad hype
@whiteasianrose
Definitely not good to be jogging in a sprint event.
@andylaiphoto that could lead to some unfortunate results
@whiteasianrose
the "iPantypad"?? Really? Stop trolling. We get it- Apple made used a name that can be made fun of. Move along now kiddo...
Hence the "Spring" in "Spring Design"?
Vaporware!
No thanks.
@zetman
This thing has made it through and been approved by the FCC... That usually means the device in question is being released. Ergo, not vaporware.
@Zac89
Just because it passes through the FCC and produces units doesn't mean it's not vaporware. If this even DOES hit the market- I see it placed in a small few of geeks hands and that's about it. They have no name behind them and most likely will not have the support that the iPad, HP Slate, and others will have. Ergo- it is vaporware.
@think before you react
You really need to look up what vaporware is and where the term originated.
@think before you react
If the Alex reader hits the market. Then I do believe that goes against the whole term "vaporware." If it doesn't, then you're right, vaporware. But this thing has been in the works for a long time now, so I would place my bets on the fact that this thing is coming out.
On the whole support thing, I just don't see that as a big issue. This is an eBook reader that supports ePub among other supposed formats. The great thing about that is that ePub is the format of the downloadable content of Google Books, the new iPad bookstore, and Project Gutenberg. Not to mention, this can print your web content right to the e-ink screen. So there are already large source content providers with prospects for more in the future! I think that the target audience is a bit different that the "tablet" audience. These readers are aimed more at those who wish to carry a large text library with them, while (to me at least) the tablets seem to be devices aimed at overall media consumption and light portable computing. I think it all depends on what you're looking for in these products.
But hey, who knows if this whole "tablet/e-book" thing is actually going to take off anyways? Vaporware or not, this thing is an impressive piece of technology.
Hopefully the delay is allowing them to design something that isn't so ugly.
Spring Design should be embarrassed by the delay. It's not that hard to make an order page nor is it difficult to be upfront with customers about a delay. The product has potential but after the fcc filing it looks like there is no 3g, at least not in the user manual. No 3g would be a big mistake.
Well it might as well be vaporware. If you look at the company from the outside it appears to be a total mess.
1. A complete disregard for customers by announcing several release dates, missing them and then not even stating that their going to miss them. (I don't think I've ever seen anything like that)
2. Inconsistent product images within press releases, trade shows, and even their own website! They don't even know what this thing looks like.
3. They are looking for a Project Manager on their site for months now. They either can't find anyone, can't afford anyone, or don't care about their website. (any one of those is bad to me)
4. Complete silence from the company. Nothing new to announce, nothing to be excited about,...just a string of bad dates.....
....No thanks.
the silence part is what makes me very nervous as well. If you had a legitimate reason (manufacturing related or supply logistics) for the delay, LET US KNOW.... let the consumers know about it, so we can wait while the company smoothes out the rough edges and make this a smooth experience for all of us. But they decided to go radio silence on us, and simply drop two unformatted lines of text updates on their website. This is unacceptable PR, especially for a product with so much hype and potential.