These products showed a lot of promise at the show and were pronounced hot trends. But a lot of them went on to face commercial disaster, or failed to hit the market altogether.
Roger Cheng
Roger Cheng (he/him/his) was the executive editor in charge of CNET News, managing everything from daily breaking news to in-depth investigative packages. Prior to this, he was on the telecommunications beat and wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal for nearly a decade and got his start writing and laying out pages at a local paper in Southern California. He's a devoted Trojan alum and thinks sleep is the perfect -- if unattainable -- hobby for a parent.
Palm made a big splash at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show, announcing its new mobile operating system, WebOS, and a touch-screen smartphone called the Pre. Here, Palm Executive Chairman Jon Rubinstein holds up the Pre for all to see. Unfortunately, the Pre, and follow-up phone Pixie, failed to make much of a dent in the market, forcing Palm to sell itself. Acquirer Hewlett-Packard didn't fare much better, and dumped WebOS on to the open-source community.
2 of 9 CNET Asia
3D still isn't much of a draw
3D television emerged as a hot trend at the 2010 CES show but so far hasn't made much of an impression on consumers. Part of the problem? Expensive glasses and the lack of content. Since then, 3D has been reduced to a feature on the TV, rather than something to highlight.
3 of 9 Foxit Software
A flood of e-book readers
CES 2010 was also the year of e-book readers. Yes, the Amazon Kindle, which debuted at its own event in New York, has been a huge success, but others that have tried to follow in its footsteps haven't fared as well. Foxit Software's eSlick reader was positioned as a budget reader that used the company's PDF-reading capabilities. But Foxit shut down the e-reader business later that year.
4 of 9 Skiff
Skiff goes nowhere fast
Another e-reader that debuted at CES 2010, the Skiff was designed by Hearst to display newspapers and magazines. The software platform was purchased by News Corp., but not the reader, leaving the product dead.
5 of 9 Microsoft
Microsoft debuts the ill-fated Slate PC
With his usual enthusiasm, Steve Ballmer touted the new Slate PC, which would be Microsoft's answer to Apple's iPad. Well, it didn't fare so well, as all Microsoft's partners jumped ship to Android for their tablet needs. The few Slate PCs that came out were DOA.
6 of 9 Motorola
Xoom's early momentum fades quickly
Motorola Mobility had some high hopes for the Xoom, the first tablet to run Android 3.0, also known as Honeycomb, the first version of Android designed solely for tablets. The software turned out to be buggy, and with few apps to support the device, customers couldn't justify paying a premium for it.
7 of 9 Josh MIller/CNET
Anyone remember the G-Slate?
T-Mobile USA, at the time trying to mount a comeback with new CEO Philipp Humm, debuted the LG G-Slate at CES 2011. It's one of many tablets that disappeared quickly. The photo shows Humm on the right, with Jong-Seok Park, CEO of LG.
8 of 9 Lenovo
Ultrabooks never took off
The ThinkPad T430u is one of several Ultrabooks shown off at CES in 2012. It got lost in the crowd as no one really paid too much attention to the slimmer laptops.
9 of 9 Sarah Tew/CNET
Razer Edge has dulled over time
The Razer Edge won best of show at CES last year, but hasn't really made a dent in the market.
