Packing a 6-inch monochrome E Ink display and a Kindle-style QWERTY keyboard, the LumiRead has WiFi – and 3G in a future model – together with an ISBN scanner that can be used to keep a wish-list of titles for future purchase.There’s also 2GB of onboard storage – good, Acer say, for around 1,500 ebook titles – together with a microSD card slot. It’s also DLNA compliant, which means you can use it to stream music from Acer’s clear.fi system or a third-party streaming system.
As for content, Acer has apparently inked deals with Barnes & Noble in the US, Libri.de in Germany and Founder in China. You can also go online with the built-in browser, and save a local version of pages for reading later when you’ve no connection. No word on pricing, but the Acer LumiRead is apparently due to arrive in Q3 2010.
Note: The two current prototypes, monochrome e-Ink and color LCD, are only a few millimeters thick. The firm has said nothing about pricing. Why they are bothering with a WiFi based model and not jumping directly to 3G in the first iteration is beyond me. Of course, given the Beijing connection, all books will be heavily censored. ;-)
