Finally Hewlett-Packard got into the play and now aims to dethrone Apple’s iPad empire in the tablet market with the release of the WebOS Touchpad. It sure makes the say “If you do something, do it right”.

The HP tablet has been crafted to target iPad but Apple recognizes the need for improved specifications and is upgrading its own wares to tackle the Androids around the bend, it looks like we have now a Red King on this Black and White board, which makes checking for browser compatibility while developing PSD to CMS conversions more difficult to achieve on pixel perfect standards.

The HP vice president said that in the tablet market, it will be not just number one, but number one plus. Its $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm last April gave the company an instant presence in the mobile space, but the primary motivation was to eventually integrate WebOS across mobile devices and various other products. They are positioning it as a device that’s suitable for both business and personal use. It supports up to 16 Microsoft Exchange accounts on a single device and uses Quickoffice for compatibility with Microsoft Office docs.

HP although packs in a novel touch-to-share feature which enables a user to just bump a Palm Pre phone with the TouchPad to share URLs, document or songs. It comes with an additional feature that automatically creates groups of related stacks, reducing clutter and making it easier to move the stacks. The multitasking features let a user run multiple applications at the same time it shows the activities in the form of cards, not a sea of application icons on numerous home screens.

This could benefit users as they can run applications on two devices, thus, gaining the benefit of dual-screens. If Laptops Rocks, WebOS Rules!

Pre3 and TouchPad will be able to share URL-based content between devices by touching them together. If a text message or phone call comes in while the phone is charging, it will be routed automatically to the tablet and that is just plain awesome. It is also powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon APQ8060 1.2 GHz processor and has room for upgrades for 3D support and 1080p video playback to take full advantage of HTML5 and CSS3.

The virtual keyboard is also adjustable between small, medium and large to account for varying finger sizes. It will be compatible with HP’s ePrint service, which prints to certain HP printers by sending an email template to their email address. There are already more than 7,000 WebOS apps on its App Catalog. In 2012, HP will ship WebOS on every PC, giving developers access to a user base of around 60 million. It will be Wi-Fi-only at launch.

On the memory front, it offers 1GB RAM in both 16 GB and 32 GB configuration with a a single 1.3 MP front facing camera this could be a disadvantage against Motorola Xoom

The comparisons reveal that HP TouchPad is not that behind in terms of specification as some reports suggest, yet it has sufficient room for expansion. We just have to wait a little, probably until summer, to find out if it is worth challenging iPad and win the checkmate.