After completely reinventing the artist formerly known as Windows Mobile in late 2010, the company fleshed out and polished up the OS with the current Windows Phone 7.5 iteration. Thanks to a $1 billion partnership with Finnish giant Nokia early last year, as well as strong continued partnerships with handset makers HTC and Samsung, the Windows Phone ecosystem is set to finally come into its own in 2012.
Despite not dominating the show floor to the extent it did last year, Google's Android mobile operating system nevertheless managed a strong showing at CES 2012. Motorola announced a brace of powerful smartphones with the Droid Razr Maxx and the Droid 4, LG brought out the 4G LTE Spectrum handset for Verizon, and Samsung introduced a unique entrant to that middle ground between phone and tablet with the 5.3" Galaxy Note on AT&T. Samsung also saw its flagship Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone, the Galaxy Nexus, leave Verizon exclusivity for Sprint.