Available April 14, this “nook clone” from Spring Design has the following features and will be available from Borders for $399:
e-Reader Comparison Table: Nook vs. Alex e-Reader from Spring Design
| B&N nook e-Reader | Spring Design Alex e-Reader | |
| Screen Size (inches)/ Resolution | 6 / 600 x 800
(Second Screen – 3.5) |
6 / (Second Screen – 3.5 at 320 x 480) |
| Screen Type | E Ink (Second Screen – LCD) | E Ink (Second Screen – LCD) |
| e-Reader Cover / Case | Silver Gray | Black or White |
| Grayscale / Color | 16 shades of gray on E Ink Screen | The HVGA (320 x 480 pixel) LCD supports 16-bit color and has a capacitive touch screen that can display 320-by-240-resolution video at between 15 and 30 frames per second. |
| Storage Capacity | 2GB (expandable microSD) | 2GB (expandable microSD) |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi, Sierra Wireless 3G from AT&T, USB |
Wi-Fi, USB (3G/EvDO models are due out later in 2010) |
| e-book format(s) | ePub, eReader, PDF, PDB | ePUB, PDF, HTML, and TXT; JPEG, GIF, and BMP graphics, MP3 audio, and MP4, 3GP, and FLV video. |
| Web Browser | No | Yes |
| Multimedia | Audio | Audio through 3.5mm headphone jack and Video |
| Third-Party Apps? | No | Yes, Google Android apps, including the calculator, e-mail, photo gallery, and music player. And, while there’s no link for the Android Market, you can download Android apps from sources like androidfreeware.com. |
| Navigation | Touch Screen LCD, power button on the top of the device and the page forward and back buttons on each side of the device. |
Touch Screen LCD, plus five physical buttons surround the LCD: left and right page navigation buttons for paging backward and forward, a return button, a power button, and a button on top of the screen to synchronize content. |
| Size (inches) | 7.7 x 4.9 x 0.50 | 8.9 x 4.7 x 0.4 |
| Weight (pounds) | 11.2 oz | 11 oz |
| Operating System (OS) | Android 1.5 | Android 1.5 |
| CPU | Samsung CPU (S3C6410 ARM processor that could render OpenGL ES 2.0-level graphics and runs on a simple 2GB SanDisk microSD card.) |
600MHz Marvell CPU with next-page memory buffer for faster page loading. |
| Price | US $259 | US $399 |