Acer may be late to the eReader market, but being so may bring some merits, too. You get to see everyone’s cards before you lay down your aces.  But at this point, when most companies are at their 2nd and 3rd generation devices, does Acer still have something to bring to the table?

In fact, Acer has several tricks up its sleeve. It has partnered up with B&N and international retail stores (Libri.de in Germany, Founder in China) to bring a vast library of content to readers. Altogether, Acer’s Lumiread Reader has access to more than 5 million titles (that’s more than twice Amazon’s current offering).

The Acer Lumiread Reader is also bringing two potential killer features. One is a built-in ISBN scanner that scans ISBN codes on physical books to quickly look up availability and price of their digital counterparts. Another standout feature is Smart Download; it allows you download and save content of internet pages for offline reading. 

Features – Hardware and Software

It looks like Acer took a page from the Kindle design book. Like the Kindle, the Acer Lumiread Reader has a physical QWERTY keyboard underneath a 6-inch eInk display, 5-way controller, and page turn buttons on both sides of the device.

The device will most likely be thicker than the Kindle, though, because of an added microSD card slot. Acer might have also gotten inspiration from the Barnes & Noble Nook for its cover flow view of books. The homepage displays book covers of your Recently Read books or Recently Added Books.

The Acer eReader will also feature Acer’s Clear.fi Media System. What this feature does, basically, is it allows you to transfer books from a desktop to your eReader. DLNA compliance, on the other hand, enables sharing of books and audiobooks. The Lumiread Reader has 3G connectivity probably for accessing partner bookstores, while WiFi may be used for web browsing.  

Its 2GB onboard storage can be expanded infinitely via microSD slot.  The Acer Lumiread Reader is said to support a wide variety of book, audiobook, and music formats. There’s also an auto layout function to set page viewing mode with a simple tilt of the device.

The Bottom Line

The Acer Lumiread eReader has been announced to go on sale in July or August. If it successfully delivers its killer functions, the device may be the first to give the Kindle a run for its money.