Tablet computers feel the competition with release of HP TouchPad
Tablet computers like the iPad will have another tablet to compete with when HP and Palm release their TouchPad on July 1.
The Palm TouchPad is shown on a screen during a media presentation at Herbst Pavilion at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, in this file picture taken February 9, 2011. Hewlett Packard Co will begin selling its Touchpad on July 1 in the United States for $499.99, debuting the first tablet computer powered by Palm's operating software.
Beck Deifenbach/Reuters/File
HP says its TouchPad tablet will make its debut in the United States on July 1 in two versions for $500 and $600.
It's the first tablet that uses the webOS operating system, which HP bought along with Palm Inc. last year for $1.8 billion.
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Hewlett-Packard Co. has previously made tablets based on Windows, but webOS is a cellphone operating system, making the TouchPad more like the iPad than a PC.
The price of the TouchPad also matches that of the iPad. The two versions come with 16 and 32 gigabytes of memory and connect to the Internet only with Wi-Fi.
HP says AT&T Inc. will sell TouchPads that work on its wireless network later this summer.
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