Can Bulky HP Touchpad Beat Slim Apple iPad 2, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1?

When PC giant Hewlett-Packard spent $1.2 billion to buy Palm Inc. in July 2010, everyone was wondering what HP would do with Palm's critically-acclaimed operating system WebOS.

The answer is HP Touchpad, which is powered by the WebOS 3.0 operating system.

The WebOS operating system was very much appreciated for its ease of use, multitasking functions and open architecture, but was overshadowed by Palm's hardware features.

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What makes HP TouchPad a compelling alternative to competing products is WebOS, said Jon Rubinstein, senior vice president and general manager, Palm Global Business Unit, HP. The platform's unmatched features and flexibility will continue to differentiate HP products from the rest of the market for both personal and professional use. This is only the beginning of what HP's scale can do with webOS.

So, a neat operating system along with HP hardware makes Touchpad a good competitor in the tablet space.

HP's Touchpad, which is launching on July 1, will be competing wih Apple's iPad 2 - the market leader that is known for giving users a complete ecosystem.

Others in the competition include a flurry of Android devices, mainly Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

TouchPad, which boasts a 9.7-inch screen, is powered by a 1.2 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. The device supports proximity-based sharing, allowing compatible devices to wirelessly exchange data, media, and information, via Bluetooth.

The device provides premium audio playback with stereo speakers and Beats Audio technology. It has the Just Type feature to find information on the device or in the cloud and offers integrated access to their information with HP Synergy. Meanwhile, HP's exclusive Touch to Share capability allows users to share Web addresses between HP TouchPad and compatible webOS phones.

Recently, HP announced HP webOS Pivot, providing users an entertaining and informative editorial resource for discovering webOS 3.0 applications for the HP TouchPad.

The Touchpad currently comes only with Wi-Fi, costing $499.99 for a 16GB model and $599.99 for a 32GB model. But, the company said it will be partnering with AT&T later this summer to launch a connected version of the tablet.

iPad 2

iPad 2 is the second generation of the iPad, a tablet computer designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc.

iPad 2 has a lithium-ion polymer battery that lasts up to 10 hours, a new dual core Apple A5 processor and VGA front-facing and 720p rear-facing cameras designed for FaceTime video calling.

The tablet, which runs on iOS 4.3.3, is 15 percent lighter and 33 percent thinner than its predecessor.

Apple unveiled the device on March 2, 2011, began selling it by website and retail stores on March 11, and released it in 25 other countries on March 25, including Australia, Britain and Canada.

iPad is one of the best-selling gadgets and Apple recently announced it sold more than 25 million devices since iPad was launched in April 2010. In 2011, iPad is expected to take 83 percent of the tablet computing market share in the United States.

Wi-Fi models of iPad 2 starts at $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB and $699 for 64GB. Adding 3G costs $130 extra per model, so the most expensive model (64GB / 3G) is $829.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, running Google's Honeycomb software (Android 3.1), belongs to the next generation of the Samsung Galaxy Tab series, which consists of the 10.1 model and the 8.9 model.

The device is touted as a direct competitor to iPad 2.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, like iPad 2, comes with 16/32/64 GB configuration. The device offers 1GB RAM and 9 hours of battery life.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 sports a dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor and weighs only 1.24 pounds.

Let's see the comparison of the three devices:

Now, let's make a head-to-head comparison of the two products: