The Wi-Fi version of the HP TouchPad will be available for consumers in the United States starting on July 1. This marks HP's first webOS tablet.

The HP TouchPad will be available for purchase from U.S. retailers, commercial resellers and directly from HP.

Consumers can preorder the device in North America and Europe starting on June 19.

The device will also be available in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France and Germany during the beginning of July and in Canada in mid-July. It will be available later in 2011 in Italy and Spain, as well as in Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Singapore.

"What makes HP TouchPad a compelling alternative to competing products is webOS," Jon Rubinstein, senior vice president and general manager, Palm Global Business Unit, HP, said about the new product in a company statement. "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."

Among the U.S. retailers and commercial resellers for HP TouchPad will be: Best Buy, Staples, Office Depot, Walmart, Sam's Club, OfficeMax, Amazon.com, Fry's, Microcenter, as well as HP's online stores.

It has either 16 GB or 32 GB of internal storage and sells for either $499.99 or $599.99.

In addition, HP will be partnering with AT&T to offer a connected version of HP TouchPad during the summer, according to a report appearing on TechZone360.

Information Week notes that the webOS App Market has 6,000 applications compared to Apple's iPad, which has been optimized for over 90,000 applications and can run over 200,000 iPhone applications.

Some of the features on the TouchPad are: a 9.7-inch display, a 1.3 megapixel camera, 1.2-GHz, dual-core SnapDragon processor, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and GPS. It will run webOS 3.0. It weighs 1.6 pounds.

The device will offer various accessories, such as a Touchstone Charging Dock, a TouchPad Wireless Keyboard, and the TouchPad Case. They are sold separately.

Information Week reports that HP suggested it may license the webOS to other original equipment manufacturers.