HP's Web-OS-powered TouchPad tablet will make its debut in the United States on July 1 in two versions for $500 and $600. HP's first webOS tablet will be available in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France and Germany a few days later and in Canada in mid-July, with availability scheduled to follow later this year in Italy and Spain, as well as in Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Singapore.

HP TouchPad will be available from U.S. retailers, commercial resellers and direct from HP with the option of either 16 GB or 32 GB of internal storage for $500 and $600, respectively. Preorders in North America and Europe will begin June 19.

The price of the TouchPad matches that of the iPad.

HP bought the webOS along with Palm last year for $1.8 billion.

With webOS, HP TouchPad offer users multitasking, access to the web, audio playback with stereo speakers and Beats Audio technology, the ability to find information on the device or in the cloud using the Just Type feature, integrated access to their information with HP Synergy, and HP's exclusive Touch to Share capability for sharing web addresses between HP TouchPad and compatible webOS phones.

The TouchPad has a 9.7-inch multitouch screen, a front 1.3-megapixel camera, virtual keyboard, instant-on access, support for Adobe Flash and access to webOS applications . It runs a 1.2GHz Snapdragon Processor processor and the screen resolution is 1024x768.

HP says AT&T Inc. will sell TouchPads that work on its wireless network later this summer.