Look out Apple, slide aside Samsung, and move over Motorola because the gauntlet has been thrown, and boy has it ever. Making the most out of a press event in San Francisco, Hewlett-Packard formally (and finally) rolled out its long awaited webOS tablet, the HP TouchPad. HP's challenger enters the ring measuring 13.7 millimeters thick and weighing 1.6 pounds with a capacitive screen span extending 9.7 inches. It looks strikingly similar to the iPad, but the hardware is a different story.

Motoring the HP TouchPad is a dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor, which we think is worth repeating. Ready? Here we go: Motoring the HP TouchPad is a dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor. That alone should give the TouchPad enough muscle to wrestle other tablets on the market, though it will be interesting to see how the iPad 2 stacks up. Other notable features include:

• 16GB or 32GB of storage space
• Gyroscope
• Accelerometer
• Compass
• Front-facing 1.3MP webcam with support for videoconferencing
• 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Beats Audio

From the pictures and promotional video, the webOS UI looks dazzling, if not somewhat similar to the iPad. Even the virtual keyboard had us doing a double-take to make sure we were looking at the TouchPad and not Apple's magical slate. Threaded email, wireless printing, the ability to sync information over to other webOS devices like the Pre 3, and wireless charging are all promising features that bode well for the TouchPad.


No word on price or a release date, but be sure to stay tuned -- we'll be posting updates as more info becomes available.