The Nokia N97 is out in the U.S. now, and it was all set to be the likeliest contender for the title of iPhone Killer of 2009...and they priced the devices at $700 and put themselves completely out of the running.

At least that's what many smartphone customers and industry analysts believe. Pricing the N97 at $700 is putting it in a completely different marketing category than the $99 iPhone, which makes it very difficult for the Nokia device to compete.

Even the Palm Pre, which also bodes well as an iPhone alternative, only rings in at $299--and it has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard to boot. Oh wait, so does the Nokia N97. Well still, flagship smartphone or no flagship smartphone, what is Nokia's logic in the N97's $700 price tag?

One advantage of the Nokia N97 over the iPhone, for some users at least, is that it's not tied to any particular wireless carrier, so people can use their favorite--AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile--as they wish.

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.