Remember HP’s webOS event that they talked about after their webOS tablet got leaked on the Internet? Well, it’s already been running (actually, finished), and HP announced a swell of webOS related hardware and some software news too. We’ll be looking at the tablet first, since it’s the first that got leaked and rumored heavily on the net.

The webOS tablet is indeed called HP TouchPad, previously known by its codename as Topaz. Opal will be coming along in the near future it seemed. It’s 9.7-inch, so you can imagine it to be similar size to the Apple iPad, though slightly heavier at 730 grams compared to the Wi-Fi only iPad that’s 680 grams, but no big deal here. Screen resolution is the same as the iPad, at 1024 x 768, so no Full HD contents here despite having the raw power. In contrast, Motorola’s upcoming Honeycomb tablet the Xoom is 10.1-inch and has a bigger 1280 x 800 resolution, but weights the same. Thickness is about 13mm, which is actually quite thick. Hopefully Apple will come up with something less than 10mm.

HP’s TouchPad is powered by Qualcomm MSM8x60 Soc with a 1.2GHz dual-core Scorpion CPU, so it should put up a decent fight with the upcoming iPad 2 and Motorola Xoom, as well as any other Honeycomb tablets with Tegra 2 chips. The GPU is a Qualcomm Adreno 220. As the matter of fact, all the webOS products announced today are Qualcomm powered.

The TouchPad has an internal 1GB memory, and you get to choose between 16GB or 32GB storage, quite the similar path from everyone. Standard 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR, and A-GPS are present. Other features are like built-in gyroscope, accelerometer, and compass. Camera wise, there’s a front-facing 1.3-Megapixel webcam supporting video calling. Oddly there’s no back camera for HD video recording.

HP claims that this TouchPad is “screaming fast” thanks to the webOS 3.0 used here. HP describes it as an “instant on” experience, so we shall see about that. They even claim to have “true multitasking”, which everyone seemed to be very bothered with these days.

There’s a new paneled email application a Growl-like pop-up notification system, support for Skype calling, compatibility with Amazon’s Kindle e-book store, plenty of cal / email integration courtesy of HP Synergy, a slick virtual keyboard, VPN support, wireless printing as well as Google Docs, QuickOffice, Dropbox and Box.net compatibility. One of the killer features that can’t be found on a competing tablet right now is this one’s ability to talk to the Pre 3 — so long as there’s a Touchstone involved, one can have their Pre 3 and TouchPad communicate, even piping over notifications and texts from the phone onto the slate.

Over on the accessories front, there’s a case / stand (which includes a handy flip-out kickstand for desk use), a wireless keyboard, and a new Touchstone dock that enables all of the wireless communication magic between webOS devices. The TouchPad WiFi-only version will be coming to US sometime this summer with 3G/4G versions and other markets to follow. No price is announced though.

SOURCE via Palm