New Plastic Logic teases QUE proReader with 8.5 x 11-inch touchscreen

since the official launch won't happen until January 7 at CES next year, but Plastic Logic is looking to crash into the "pro" segment of the e-reader market (currently mostly occupied by the Kindle DX) with its upcoming QUE proReader.

The unit uses E Ink Vizplex tech in a shatterproof display the size of a regular piece of paper at 8.5 x 11-inches, and has 3G wireless capabilities courtesy of AT&T and a business-centric ebook store at QUEreader.com which will be powered by Barnes & Noble. There's also a touchscreen interface, but it's unclear if that covers the entire display, or is something more akin to the leaked photos we've seen of the Barnes & Noble reader. The device is "less than 1/3-inch thick," and can handle PDF, Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents, including tools for "interacting with and managing the content," which sounds beyond the scope of most e-readers on the market currently. We'll have to wait and see how useful the interface really is, and how much damage (if any) that touchscreen sensor does to readability, but a bit of diversification in the ebook space sounds like a good thing on paper. Full PR is after the break.