HP Touchpad tablet will tip up on 15 July

ONLINE RETAILER Clove.co.uk has announced it is taking pre-orders for the HP Touchpad with a release date of 15 July.

The date from Clove is the first proper date that we've heard for UK availability. None of Clove's big rivals such as Amazon, Expansys or Play have dates or even prices for the HP tablet yet.

The Clove blog said, "We're looking forward to seeing HP's webOS platform in action on a tablet and in particular the 'touch to share feature' that works in conjunction with HP smartphones."

The prices remain in line with what we heard earlier this month from HP with the 16GB version priced at £399 and the 32GB model at £479. Both are WiFi only and we're still waiting to hear when the 3G editions will tip up.

HP will feature WebOS 3.0 on the Touchpad along with a 1.2GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM.

Clove also revealed on its blog that the HP Pre 3 handset will launch around the same time, which is currently available for pre-order at Clove for £360.

The Touchpad will be joining an already busy market but HP believes it can offer something different with features such as wireless printing and Touchstone interactivity with other HP devices. µ