Conspicuous by the lack of any substantial new coming from this year's CES were the two South Korean behemoths LG and Samsung. Actually, that's not quite true: both of these electronics giants were busy showing off hundreds of hi-tech products, with HDTVs in particular occupying pride of place in the line-ups.

As far as mobile phones were concerned, though, CES 2008 was a decidedly low-key affair, with LG in particular showing off a range of phones that were decidedly underwhelming.

More details after the jump.

Of the range of phones that LG were showing off, only two caught the eye: the LG Voyager and LG Venus. Unfortunately, both of these phones are hardly new, having been announced by the company months ago.

The LG Voyager is a good-looking touchscreen smartphone that's been adopted by Vodafone to take on the iPhone. However, all it offers over the iPhone is a QWERTY keyboard on top (well, underneath!) of its touchscreen interface. The rest of the phone is pretty similar in terms of features, with just a 2 megapixel camera adding to the disappointing spec list. It does come with a decent Web browser, though, as well as as the ability to play mobile TV, but other than that, it offers nothing special.

Then there's the LG Venus, which is a touchscreen music phone that also comes with just a 2 megapixel camera, two screens, and the choice of black or pink. And, um, that's it really!

The rest of the LG line-up was all focused on the low-end, which is a bit worrying, as it seems as though LG has stopped focusing on its technological marvels. The last high tech phone we had from the company was the LG Viewty with its innovative slow motion video recording capability.

If this really is all we can expect from LG during 2008, then we' re in for a dull year from the company! Fortunately there are many other developments in the mobile phone market from the other major players, and LG may yet spring a few surprises on us, like they did with the Viewty, which was entirely unexpected. We can but hope!

[Source: PocketPicks]