This year's Consumer Electronics Show--not typically a place where mobile phones generally stand out--saw a smartphone, namely the new Palm Pre, win the CNET Best of CES Award.

And that was only 1 of 3 awards Palm's new iPhone-killer (the most promising looking contender for that position in 2009) which also won:

• the Best of CES Award in the Cellphone category
• the People's Voice Award

The LG Watch Phone, however, probably walked away with the Wow-Factor award of the year.

Meanwhile the Motorola Surf A3100 touchscreen smartphone earned itself a Best of CES nomination, at least. Motorola also rolled out its "Green" smartphone--in that it's built from recycled water bottles--the Renew W233 and it's rough-and-tumble AT&T Tundra A76r.

Other highlights of the introductions made at the 2009 CES include:

• RIM and T-Mobile's BlackBerry Curve 8900
• T-Mobile Shadow
• HTC S743
• as US version of the Nokia E63
• and the eagerly-anticipated Nokia N97

The quietest voice on the CES smartphone stage this year was no doubt Samsung, who barely had a thing to show but for the T-Mobile SGH-T119.