Palm and their webOS were expected to be the next big thing in smartphones, but unfortunately the company ran out of money before it managed to make an impact. However now that they have the backing of HP there is every chance that the excellent OS will get the chance to prove its worth in the tablet world.

Some photos of the upcoming HP Topaz tablet leaked, along with the detailed specs sheet and it all looks pretty promising. Built around the Qualcomm MSM8660 Snapdragon platform, featuring two Scorpion cores running at 1.2 GHz and the new Adreno 220 GPU, the Topaz will have all the computing power it needs to run webOS on the 9.7-inch XGA (1024 x 768 pixels) screen. The available RAM will be 512MB, while the storage options will include 16, 32 and 64GB.

Dual-band Wi-Fi b/g/n and Bluetooth will come on every HP Topaz, while 3G+HSPA and LTE radios will come as an option. A front-facing 1.3MP camera will allow video chatting with the 700 g weighing device, while the built-in accelerometer and gyroscope should enhance gaming capabilities.

The HP Topaz will have two integrated speakers plus a 3.5mm audio jack. Its dual 3150 mAh batteries should keep it going for over 8 hours. Oh and by the way, full Flash support is said to be high on the developers’ priority list so the Topaz will most likely feature it.

With HP/Palm just a few weeks away from their 9th February event in San Francisco that looks to herald the appearance of two new webOS tablet devices Engadget have been getting the low down on said devices.

The two tablets are apparently called Topaz and Opal, presumably codenames, with Topaz being the larger of the two at 241x190x13mm, which is pretty much identical to the iPad dimensions. Opal is the smaller of the two tablets at 180x144x13mm, which is shorter, but wider, than Samsung Galaxy Tab. Opal is expected to launch first, Topaz perhaps being as much as three months later to the shops.

The tablets will feature what HP are calling premium audio, which Engadget are saying will mean the tablets will feature HP Beats audio processing technology. The tablets are also said to come with 'tens of gigabytes of cloud based storage.

Now whilst we are on the subject of cloud based storage this is where these tablets get really interesting if Engadget report is to be believed. Engadget received an anonymous tip about a consumer survey conducted by a research company in North America, which is strongly suspected of being on behalf of HP. The survey reveals some rather interesting features that might creep into these tablets, features like 'Tap-to-Share'.

Tap-to-Share does pretty much what it says on the tin, you tap two supported devices together e.g. a phone and a tablet and you can seamlessly transfer a song, document, website or whatever. Think Bump, but built right into the device.

That also ties in with a slide Engadget got their hands on detailing an ability to move content experiences between devices. That should, in theory at least anyway, allow you to switch between devices without any loss of content. Apps, saved app states and documents could perhaps be launched from the cloud so in the end it would not matter what device you were using. Of course this last part is still speculation at the moment, we do not know exactly how far reaching the concept will be advanced in these tablets.

Sometimes executives can be most forthcoming with information and we can add Todd Bradley, a VP at HP, to that list. During an interview with CNBC he was asked about HP plans to compete with the likes of the iPad and the answer he gave was "you and I will talk about that on the 9th".

That sounds pretty clear as a date for HP webOS tablet to launch. Bradley went on to say that HP decided not to unveil its tablet at CES because of the saturation of tablets and devices on show, which would presumably rob a webOS tablet of some of the limelight. Instead the unveiling looks to be happening in San Francisco on 9th February, which should allowfor the press to focus on whatever is announced.

Palm is probably not the first manufacturer that comes to mind when you think of touchscreen keyboards, famously having plumped for a hardware solution pretty much consistently. Even more so that Blackberry one might argue.

Well that looks to be changing with the discovery of a full on touchscreen keyboard tucked away in the latest version of webOS 2.0 Its not fully functioning and will require a bit of jiggery pokery and patience with its bugs, but it does hint that touchscreen devices sans keyboard are on their way from HP/Palm in the not too distant future.

Video Below!

The recently announced Palm Pre 2 smartphone has just been launched in the US. Unlocked Pres come directly from HP and cost way less than here in Europe. HP has already started taking orders and phones are dispatched within 24 hours.

The Palm Pre 2 arrives with a faster processor (1GHz), a 5MP snapper and a scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass covering the 3.1-inch HVGA touchscreen with multi-touch support.

The successor of the Palm Pre Plus also packs 16GB of non-expandable storage and 512MB RAM, a built-in GPS receiver as well as support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. On top of that it runs the latest version of the webOS platform, webOS 2.0, which brings along a handful of improvements including even better multi-tasking, Flash capable web browser, etc.

US customers can get the unlocked Palm Pre 2 for 450 USD (330 Euro) and in UK 400 GBP (470 Euro).