Plastic Logic and Barnes & Noble Confirm the QUE proReader [QUE proReader to be Available in 2010; Pricing not Available Yet]

Remember the QUE proReader we told you about a while ago? We thought the QUE will be Barnes & Noble’s first eBook reader but we were wrong. Barnes & Noble’s first eBook was the Nook and the QUE will be the second one. Together with Plastic Logic, the makers of the QUE, Barnes & Noble has announced the new reader and we should expect to see it in action only next year.

It looks like the two companies have big plans for the QUE. The reader is intended to be used by business professionals and it will be available in Barnes & Noble stores at some point next year. Richard Archuleta, the CEO of Plastic Logic said:

We are very excited to name Barnes & Noble as our first retail distribution partner and to have QUE featured prominently in its stores. QUE was designed from the ground up as a tool for busy business professionals, expanding the eReader market as its first and only proReader.

What will a proReader do? Well the QUE will have access to a lot of documents, business and professional newspapers, periodicals and books. Barnes & Noble will offer 1 million eBooks for download through the QUE store. The reader will have support for PDF, Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents. Do you think that’s enough?

The QUE is as big as a regular sheet of paper. It measures 8.5 x 11 inch and only 1/3 inch in thickness. Other impressive features are the touchscreen interface and the Wi-Fi connectivity which will make reading even easier.

Unfortunately we don’t have more juicy details about the eBook reader and we could use some actual press photos that will show the QUE in action. Everything is said to be unveiled at CES 2010 so we’ll be back with hot stuff about the QUE next year on January 7.

So what does Amazon have to say about all this? Well, by the time the QUE will start selling, Amazon will have Kindle apps running on both Macs and PCs. Sure the Nook and the QUE look very interesting and they might be a lot better than the Kindle itself. But why get an extra reader if Amazon will let you enjoy tons of content straight on your laptop, netbook or tablet?