HP TouchPad available for preorder, starting at $499

A tablet with something a little different is officially available today. Hewlett-Packard is now taking preorders for its TouchPad with WebOS.

With the sometimes baffling assortment of Android tablets and the lackluster debut of RIM’s PlayBook tablet, the TouchPad could be the last chance that Apple’s competitors have to mount a serious challenge to the iPad’s dominance anytime soon.

HP has taken its time polishing the TouchPad since first unveiling it months ago–a far cry from the PlayBook launch, which seemed rushed and left BlackBerry fans with a shiny new tablet sans many apps to run on it. The TouchPad and WebOS’s selling points include multitasking by visually “stacking” apps for easy switching back and forth, support for Flash and HTML5, and some pretty cool syncing of text messages and more with WebOS smartphones… Read More [via cnet]