The TouchPad won’t go on sale in the states until July 1, but you can get a pre-order in now from places like Amazon, NewEgg, Best Buy, Walmart, Staples, Radio Shack, and more. The tab comes in two versions: a 16GB version for $499.99 and a 32GB model that will cost you $599.99.

Both feature a dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor, accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, stereo speakers, Touch-to-Share, a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, and a 9.7-inch display. Get your order in now.

So, about that webOS tablet. We now have some leaked specs and a name. It will apparently be called the TouchPad. It will weigh 1.5 pounds and will measure 13mm thick.

There was also a rumor about another device that might be a small phone, but we have no details yet. The webOS event is happening soon so we should learn more quickly.

A tipster sent some internal renders of HP / Palm’s “Topaz” webOS tablet to the folks over at Engadget, which is one of two tablets currently developed by HP/Palm. The two tablets are the 9-inch Topaz and a 7-inch model codnamed Opal. As you can see in the render, it sports the no-button design, a front-facing camera, a micro USB port on the bottom, and what looks like a three speaker arrangement.

Word is that units will start to arrive at Palm HQ in June, with a launch later this year. The WiFi-only, AT&T 3G, and Verizon LTE versions of the Opal should arrive in September 2011, and on AT&T LTE in July 2012. No info on pricing yet.

HP has been busy today having filed a trio of trademarks for devices that could represent Palm’s 2011 webOS lineup. The USPTO filings refer to the Gyst, Myte and Veer in generic terms but they could fit the description of a smartphone. These three could be the previously codenamed Mantaray, Stingray and Windsor, with the previously mentioned Broadway maybe being the Pixi 2.

We don’t know what these phones will do versus the Pre 2 and Pixi 2, but at least one will likely to be a touch-only model. We will just have to wait and see what happens.

Rumors are circulating about HP Palm’s next-generation webOS 2.0 offering which is codenamed the Palm Mansion. The device is said to have a 5-inch WVGA screen with a resolution of 480 X 800, which would make it similar to the Android-powered Dell Streak.

The 5-inch screen size would make it either a large smartphone or a small tablet. If it’s a smartphone, it would offer users a larger screen than traditional phones, which top at 4 inches, and still be pocketable. The device would also be using Palm’s webOS 2.0 operating system, which features smooth multitasking and several enhancements from the original webOS.

Many of you have been waiting to get your hands on the new Palm Pre 2 smartphone from HP Palm and for you folks, we have some great news. HP has just started selling a SIM free version of the Palm Pre 2 in the US.

The Palm Pre 2 is available from the HP website for $449.99 SIM free. It’s the first smartphone from HP Palm since they took over Palm and it’s also the first to feature the new webOS 2.0. The Palm Pre 2 features a 3.1 inch HVGA multitouch display with a resolution of 320 x 480 pixels, along with a slide out QWERTY keyboard
and a five megapixel camera with an LED flash.

The iPhone is on a completely different level from the Palm Pre in terms of popularity and sales. Still, there are a few things that I don’t like about the iPhone that the Pre does better. The most obvious is the way webOS handles notifications that let you keep working while the iPhone makes you stop and tend to the notification.

The man who designed the notification system in webOS has left Palm and landed at Apple. We can only hope that his first job will be to revamp the notification system the iPhone uses into something that works better.

Good news for those who had hoped that HP wouldn’t use Windows 7 in their HP Slate. Instead they will be using their newly acquired Palm WebOS. That’s what Monty Wong, vice-president of personal computing systems at HP Taiwan, said to Digitimes.

The HP Taiwan official said that HP will use WebOS for both smartphones and tablets, but not for notebooks. Also, the HP Slate will hit the market before October, with a “wide range” of software support at launch. What do you think? Good news? Or did you want another OS?

Palm has fallen quite a long way since those heady days before the Palm Pre was actually offered. HP has now bought Palm for $1.2 Billion. That’s about $5.70 per share of Palm stock. This will help HP get some firm footing into the mobile segment, with Palm’s entire patent history at their disposal. Can we expect some HP phones as soon as within the next two years?

The deal will be official by July 31 2010 and the Current CEO of Palm, Jon Rubinstein might be staying.

Palm has been on the ropes as the popularity of its Pre and Pixi WebOS smartphones has proven to be poor. The company is selling significantly less of the devices that it and analysts predicted.

Palm has stated that it is willing to entertain purchase offers and the first to step up was HTC. HTC is a rival smartphone maker and after the company eyed Palm’s books, it opted to walk away. Another suitor has stepped into the ring now.

It appears that with the recent release of iTunes 9, Apple has once again cut-off direct access for the Palm Pre’s iTunes support. We had seen it before with the release. It shouldn’t be too big of a surprise to Palm owners however, since Apple said the connectivity wouldn’t last long and they’ve thwarted Palm’s access in the past with iTunes iTunes 8.2.1.

It’s easy to see arguments on both sides of this issue, as frustrating as it might be for Palm owners. On one side Apple would like iTunes users to use Apple products to connect directly to iTunes, such as iPods or iPhones. But, they also have been a proponent of non-DRM music and are essentially making it difficult for other devices to get access to the music through their application.

The first Palm device to hit the market running the firms new webOS was the Pre that is still a Sprint exclusive handset. Palm has today announced its second webOS device called the Palm Pixi.

The Pixi is a thin phone with a full QWERTY keyboard on the front of the device in Blackberry fashion. Palm is mum on the exact launch date but says that the Pixi will hit Sprint (sigh) in time for the holidays. The handset will operate on dual-band CDMA2000 networks and supports 3G EVDO Rev A.

Well that didn’t take long. Just the other day we reported that Palm had reached 700,000 downloads and today we are up to a million. That’s pretty amazing. Especially when you consider that less than 30 applications were available from the App Catalog for a single device, which is available only on Sprint in the US.

While we don’t have any official numbers from Palm, the figure comes from industry analysts who suggest that 150,000 Pre devices were shipped since the June 6th retail introduction. That’s an average of about seven apps downloaded per phone.

Palm and Sprint haven’t confirmed the numbers officially, but according to JPMorgan in a Wall Street Journal article, “sales in the first two days probably exceeded 50,000.” The figure was “aligned with expectations, but probably fell short of the 146,000 reported first-gen iPhone sales” during its opening weekend. And that was due to “capacity constraints in manufacturing.”

So it looks like the Pre launch was a success. Next weekend’s sales may put it all in perspective. It’s great news for Palm, but it isn’t all roses. We’ll have to see if new Palm owners are still having problems or not.

The much hyped Palm Pre isn’t even here yet, and here we have another leak of a new Palm device called the Eos. This one looks pretty awesome in it’s own right. It’s a quadband GSM/HSDPA smartphone that is super thin at just 10.6mm, and weighs just 100 grams.

Some features include: 2.63″ capacitive display at 320 x 400 resolution, 2-megapixel camera with video recording capability, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and USB 2.0 connectivity, A-GPS support, Audio and video file format support, and 4GB internal memory.