What a day it's been at the International CES. Top of the bill today was definitely Palm with its Pre – a phone that really does look like an iPhone-beater. Mind you, it was definitely a day for display tech, too.

The main keynotes and press conferences are now over. Not a single electronics giant hasn't mentioned the difficult economic climate and indeed many of them – Sony and Microsoft especially – used it as a platform from which to preach that innovation will still win the day.

The overall mood of the show is of defiance, though the fact the economy has been mentioned so much is proof that the major CE companies are fearful of the next 12 months.

3D the key story

The big story of the day was 3D; indeed, it's already the display story of this CES because of its unexpected prevalence. We knew we'd be treated to some 3D stuff, but not this much!

OLED also hasn't received as much attention as we thought it would. That's partly due to manufacturers wanting to concentrate on LCD (the global recession again). Sharp, was extremely bullish about LCD's future in its press conference yesterday.

Our day kicked off with Sir Howard Stringer's Sony keynote. We were shown Pixar and Dreamworks 3D clips, while we later spotted Guitar Hero being played in 3D on Nvidia's stand – owing to Nvidia GeForce 3D Vision.

The tech uses active shutter LCD specs, an infrared receiver module and Nvidia software to mutate selected PC games into stereoscopic 3D.

Samsung and Viewsonic were also playing the 3D card. Speaking exclusively to TechRadar Sean Gunduz, Senior Product Manager for ViewSonic, said he believe it's a perfect time to embrace 3D content. "2009 is definitely the year for 3D gaming,"

Indeed, Sony showed 3D on the PlayStation 3 with exclusive three-dimensional versions of two of the PS3's most cracking games - Gran Turismo 5: Prologue and WipEout HD.

We can see 3D gaming catching on, but 3D TV? We'll see, but all the major CE companies are talking it up and with companies like Sky and Pixar also involved, well, who knows?

Palm throws a winning hand

It might not be a game-changer, but Palm's new Pre (odd name) matches the iPhone in what it can do. And for our money it beats the BlackBerry Storm into a fuzzy pulp (and it has Wi-Fi).

The device as a 3.1-inch touchscreen and full slide-out QWERTY keyboard like the T-Mobile G1. There's also a 3MP camera with LED flash, GPS, 3G connectivity, WiFi and 8GB of onboard storage.

The multi-touch OS looks excellent, and we'll be getting hands on with it tomorrow – as we will with plenty of other shiny kit as we turn our attention from the press conferences to the show floor.

From CES 2009.