CES 2012 Smartphones: 7 New Devices That Stole The Show (PHOTOS)

LAS VEGAS -- At a Consumer Electronics Show dominated in hype by a new laptop category calledUltrabooks, it might have been easy to miss just how significant all of the smartphones introduced at this year's CES really were.

Perhaps lost in the glitz of this Year Of The Ultrabook convention were smartphones that could have huge implications for their companies in 2012, beginning with the Nokia Lumia 900. Introduced at an intimate press conference here on Monday, the Nokia Lumia 900 is the handset-maker's first smartphone designed specifically for the Windows Phone operating system, Microsoft's critically acclaimed mobile software that has yet to catch on with consumers. Handset makers like HTC and Samsung are both manufacturing Windows Phones already, but sales have been slow; Microsoft and Nokia are both banking on the Lumia series of phones in 2012, and the rollout has officially begun, as the intro-level, $50 Lumia 710 went on sale at T-Mobile on Wednesday. It is the 900, however, that is the major mobile story that emerged from CES, however. At the risk of hyperbole, the Lumia 900 could determine the fate of both Nokia as a mobile presence in the United States and Windows Phone as a viable mobile operating system, as each tech giant has placed a lot of faith (and a lot of money) in this top-of-the-line Nokia Windows Phone.

Other smartphones introduced here don't carry such existential weight but are significant nonetheless: Motorola's beautiful DROID Razr had a big battery problem that Motorola claims to have fixed with the DROID Razr Maxx; Samsung pushed the limits of screen size with the Galaxy Note, a mammoth 5.3-inch device that comes with a stylus and will be promoted as a primary phone; and Chinese giant Huawei introduced the phone that it hopes will earn it a foothold in America: the Ascend PS1, which Huawei is calling "the thinnest smartphone" on the planet.

Below, we've compiled the 7 major smartphone introductions at this year's CES, all of which happen to be gorgeous pieces of technology, too. Scroll through and check out some new options for what could be your next cell phone.

For more from CES 2012, check out our roundup 9 wild and wacky gadgets for music lovers, as well as 7 Ultrabooks that could take on the MacBook Air. You can also visit our CES 2012 Big New page to see all our coverage from the week.

LAS VEGAS, NV - JANUARY 10: The Nokia Lumia 900 Windows Phone is displayed at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center January 10, 2012 in Las Vegas, Nevada. CES, the world's largest annual consumer technology trade show, runs through January 13 and is expected to feature 2,700 exhibitors showing off their latest products and services to about 140,000 attendees. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

SMARTPHONES Looking Forward to 2012: Apple TV, iPhone 5 and Goodnight PCs

Onward, tablets, smartphones and post-PC (yet still just as much “personal computing”) devices — call them whatever you like, 2012 will see a glut of me-too mobiles designed to untether us from stodgy office desktops and augment our everyday, ordinary activities by slipping into our everyday, ordinary surroundings. With that in mind, here’s my list of up-and-coming 2012 tech picks:

Apple TV, the Next Generation

The trouble my 37-inch, four-year-old LG 1080p LCD TV has squeezing inside my mammoth mission-style entertainment center aside, I’ve been eyeballing a new TV all year. I already have an Apple TV, but we’re talking the tiny black box, not a full-blown TV set. So when I say I’m eyeballing an Apple TV, let there be no confusion — I’m speaking of the rumored 32- and 37-inch Apple television sets due sometime this summer, not the device I only use to stream my music library to the living room.

Apple’s challenge, assuming these things are real, is twofold: Leapfrogging the current black box Apple TV’s features, and pricing its televisions competitively (assuming it wants to sell these things mainstream, anyway). Feature-wise, Apple needs to do more than offer access to a few third-party services and stream iTunes media from an Apple computer (it needs to be more than just an Apple TV inside an Apple-branded television, in other words) so here’s my wish list: An Apple TV that could sync wirelessly with iOS devices, allowing video, photos and even apps or games to appear (magically!) on the TV without cables, and a Siri-like voice command feature, making an appearance alongside a motion-control interface similar to (but ideally miles better than) Microsoft’s Kinect. Bring it on, Apple!

(MORE: Looking Forward to 2012: The End of Media Ownership)

iPhone 5 or Android Whatever

The iPhone 4 I picked up last February — my first iPhone, if it matters — has been a mostly up experience. It’s quick, dependable, swarming with apps that cover all my bases and not a total disaster when texting so long as I use just one finger (in lieu of two thumbs). My only complaints: The screen is too small, the phone’s too breakable (all glass, front and back) and I’m still not sold on finger-gaming, especially first-person stuff where I’m fighting just to see around my thumbs (would someone please release a thumbstick snap-around like the 3DS’s add-on already?). I have mixed feelings about most Android phones, but after playing with a friend’s Galaxy Nexus, I’ve sort of done a one-eighty: Unless the iPhone 5 is thinner and has an edge-to-edge 4.65-inch or larger display, I may just pick up a Galaxy Nexus to go hand-in-glove with a new Windows-based, gaming-angled ultrabook.

Goodbye forever, desktop PCs — hello ultrabooks and tablets!

I ditched my tricked-out Windows desktop PC a few weeks ago — good night, good luck (and, with all due respect, good riddance). I barely touched the thing in 2011, and I’ve jettisoned any nostalgic sentiments I once had for screwing around with soldering circuits or tweaking liquid cooling kits. My work machine’s now an 11-inch MacBook Air, though it might as well be a Windows-based ultrabook. I love OS X, but I’m almost as fond of Windows 7, and since I’ve kept my personal and work data agnostic, organized and easy to migrate, I’ll be happy to switch if the right hardware comes along (hello Razer Blade!). The desktop PC is a dinosaur, and Moore’s Law ceased to matter years ago (just because computing power doubles in a given period doesn’t mean app requirements or consumer needs do), so bring on the souped-up ultraportables and 2012′s enhanced tablets (be they Android or iOS based), and may the space beneath (or beside) our desks, chairs and tables remain case- and cable-free forever.

Up in Smoke: iPhone Glows Red on Plane, Melts

Where there’s smoke, there’s…if not exactly fire, how about a glowing red iPhone on an airplane? No really, someone’s iPhone apparently turned the color of molten rock (aka “lava”) and began venting “dense smoke” on an Australian regional airline last week, prompting a flight attendant to break out the cabin’s fire extinguisher.

The airline, Regional Express (Rex), acknowledged the event in a story last Friday. The flight, ZL319, was traveling from Lismore to Sydney, and had just landed when the iPhone began “emitting a significant amount of dense smoke, accompanied by a red glow.” It was so hot, reports Australia’s Herald Sun, that it “had to be dropped to the floor of the cabin,” and it “partially melted and had to be doused by a flight attendant with a fire extinguisher.”

(MORE: Should Lithium Batteries Be Classified ‘Hazardous Material’?)

Rex’s media release refers to the event as “mobile phone self combustion,” but says no one onboard was harmed and that it’s referred the incident to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) as well as the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) for investigation.

Sound like the old “exploding battery” issue? It may be, though no one’s confirmed it officially, and that’s speculation on my part. Overheating or “self combusting” tends to be a problem, albeit a rare one, with lithium-based batteries. The Obama administration wants batteries classified as “hazardous material” by the U.S. government, but a House bill passed in April barred limits that exceeded international standards on shipments of lithium cells and batteries. The bill saves companies like Apple, Panasonic and Samsung piles of money (some estimates put the figure at “billions”) in safety-related costs.

But let’s not make the mistake of reading this as portent of exploding iPhones to come. Apple’s been selling iPhones for how long? That, and the number in circulation’s supposed to top 100 million by the close of this year, each one sporting a lithium-based battery, to say nothing of all the other devices in the world using lithium-based batteries (including the MacBook Air I’m typing this on). Assuming the issue on the Rex flight was battery-related, you’re talking about a clear mathematical anomaly, and while it’ll behoove us to understand what happened and why it happened, there’s little reason to worry that your lithium-based battery is next.

Cargo-based transport, where lithium-based batteries are often stored in transit from manufacturing to retail and have the potential to impact adjacent batteries or other goods are one thing–we have reason to believe a the crash of a UPS Boeing 747 in Dubai last September was caused by a lithium-based battery fire, for instance. That’s serious business, as is the thought of a lithium-based product becoming an incendiary device while it’s in your purse, your pocket, or your house while you’re away. We need to know what about the technology can cause it to behave in completely unpredictable ways. How anomalous is it really, and how much of it is design-related (the product the battery’s in), operator-related (how it’s used or stored), or innate to the technology itself.

Droid 4 Launching Already? Here’s Why

Motorola and Verizon Wireless are reportedly about to release the Droid 4, less than five months after the launch of its predecessor.

The rumor comes from Droid Life, which posted some convincing leaked product shots and a chart that compares the Droid 4 with the Droid 3 and Droid Razr.

Should this report prove accurate, the Droid 4 will look a lot like the Droid Razr, but with a slide-out keyboard tacked on. It’ll include a slightly faster processor than the Droid 3 (1.2 GHz dual-core instead of 1 GHz dual-core), a bigger battery, an HD front-facing camera and support for Verizon’s 4G LTE network. The Droid Razr’s “Smart Actions,” which improve battery life by turning certain features on and off automatically, are also along for the ride in the Droid 4, and so is support for Motorola’s Webtop docks.

Other specs that are the same as the Droid 3 include a 4-inch qHD display and an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera. Both phones run Android 2.3, according to Droid Life’s leaked spec sheet.

If not for the 4G LTE support, Verizon wouldn’t have much justification for selling a Droid 4 this holiday season. The reported spec boosts over the Droid 3 are minor, and the software experience should be pretty similar. But Verizon is really pushing 4G in its high-end smartphones, and the carrier probably doesn’t want to go through the holidays without a flagship phone that has a hardware keyboard.

Will Droid 3 buyers squeal with rage if the Droid 4 launches on December 8, as rumored? Sure, but better Android phones are always right around the corner, and when the Droid 3 launched this summer, it was no secret that 4G phones were on the way. That’s just the way it goes.