HP TouchPad 4G Hits Amazon

Last week saw Hewlett-Packard offering a number of rebates and discounts on its first generation TouchPad. Now we know why.

This morning a new version of the tablet appeared on Amazon: The Touchpad 4G. Priced at $699, the device features a number of enhancements over its predecessor — a faster 1.5 gigahertz processor, HP’s latest webOS 3.0.2 operating system and, of course, support for 4G wireless broadband. There’s no launch date specified on the device’s Amazon page, but an HP road map leaked earlier this year suggested we could see the device debut in late summer or early fall. Hopefully, it will sell better than its predecessor when it does. Though heavily discounted on Woot.com this past weekend, the entry-level 16 gigabyte Touchpad still sold only 612 units. To put that number in perspective, Woot sold 2,288 Motorola Xooms during a similar promotion for that tablet.