Incoming! The premium tablet market’s about to gain another contender next month: HP has announced that the webOS-based tablet will start shipping in the US on July 1. It’s not as close as the June 12 launch rumor that we were expecting, but at least the rumor mill got the pricing right. True to what was promised during the tablet’s introduction back in February, it’s definitely competitively priced, with the base 16GB Wi-fi model set to sell for $500 and the 32GB version to cost $600.
So what do you get for a tablet that matches the iPad 2’s price? You get the same sized screen (9.7 inches), but with a unique webOS operating system that sets it apart from the rest of the Android-based slates. The tablet runs on a dual core 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor and Adreno 220 GPU, supports both Flash and HTML5, and features multitasking. App options are probably going to be slim this early though, and it only comes with one 1.3MP camera at the front.
Preorders for the tablet’s Wi-fi version in the US start on June 19, while the 3G version from AT&T is set to follow “later in the summer.”
The HP TouchPad is also set to launch in the UK, Ireland, France and Germany a few days after the July 1 US launch, while Canada gets it in mid-July. HP didn’t provide exact launch dates for their other international markets, but did mention that Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Hong Kong, and Singapore will get the tablet sometime later in the year.
Tags: HP, HP TouchPad, Tablets
