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The HP Tablet: The 9.7-inch, dual-core TouchPad announced

“Think big”, they said. HP’s big announcement was a 9.7-inch touch-screen, ready-for-HD tablet. This is the TouchPad, weighing a mere 726 grams, at a slim 13mm – just don’t sit on it!

It’ll be powered by the latest dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon processors, though there no more details on any extra graphical oomph inside that tiny frame. The front-facing camera is a 1.3-megapixel affair, ready for video-calling.

The TouchPad will be able to do what you expect most tablets to do- full internet with Flash 10.1, music syncing, email, and a multi-tasking system similar to previous Palm Pre phones, where different applications and emails can be “stacked” and flicked around to switch between them. 

Another nice touch is an adjustable on-screen keyboard, where you’ll have a choice of small, medium or large layout.

Another feature on the tablet is Touch2Share; you can share what you are looking at across devices- by ‘touching’ them together. In HP’s demonstration a website on the tablet bounced across to the phone screen.

The tablet will be available in 16 or 32GB flavours and can sync with your phone through webOS accounts. A WiFi TouchPad will arrive this summer, with 3G versions coming later this year.

All the new devices revealed will be compatible with HP’s awesome touchstone chargers- and will even adjust to particular display modes when set to charge.

VP Josh Rubenstein told the crowd: “This is the first in the webOS TouchPad family. For the first time webOS is on a device that lets the intuitive nature shine through.” The last bit there sounds like a shampoo…

 

HP look like they’ll be giving us plenty of new toys to choose from- the TouchPad was shown alongside two new phones, the Veer and Pre 3, and we hope they’ll be able to juice up their webOS app offerings to compete with Android and iTunes- apps are a core part of both the smartphone and tablet race.

UPDATE: We’ve found some new official pictures of the TouchPad, along with HP’s own video, demonstrating more of the multimedia capabilities of their new tablet.

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