The Consumer Electronics Show saw Motorola reveal little in the way of new handsets on Tuesday. Given, Motorola never really aims to blow the crowd away at CES, usually saving that for bigger wireless trade shows like CTIA and GSMA Mobile World Congress. However these past months, Motorola has scratched a number of phones from development, and the poor lineup at CES tells us we’ll see less of the same through the first half of 2009.

Motorola is facing some serious competition from Apple, Research in Motion (RIM) – makers of the blackberry –, and Samsung. Motorola may have more advanced devices up its sleeve, but meanwhile Apple and RIM are dominating the market in smartphones. Motorola fell behind Samsung in the U.S. last year, and it’s constantly losing its grasp on the market share.

Sanjay Jha, Motorola’s Co-Chief Executive, has indeed promised more advanced phones that use either Windows Mobile or Google’s Android mobile OS platforms, but many of these will only show up in the second half of this year.

Meanwhile what has been released is a set of phones rather built on a gimmick than making significant technological advances. One phone will be more eco-friendly, another will have military specifications like those of Nextel walkie-talkie cell phones. More interesting were the wireless equipment products that the company unveiled.

One of the models revealed at CES was the W233, a phone for the environmentally-mindful. The phone is made from plastic entirely recycled from water bottles. Motorola also compensated for the energy required for its manufacture and distribution by planting trees and making investments in renewable energy sources. The W233 will be sold by the Deutsche Telekom AG-owned T-Mobile USA later on in this year’s first quarter. Motorola has drawn upon its experience with Nextel phones when creating AT&T’s Tundra. The phone is designed for workers who need a solid phone as well as a walkie-talkie function. It will sell for $200 on a two-year contract and service plan.

The company did however unveil one smartphone, the Motosurf, a touch-screen device. Motosurf uses Windows Mobile and is controllable by either the finger, stylus or track ball. According to the company, it will retail later this quarter in several regions, including Asia and Latin America. The United States weren’t mentioned among those regions.

Motorola’s Home and Networks Mobility department had more to show for, such as a software upgrade for its Internet TV platform which allows TV operators to expand their on-demand programs. Other new products revealed by the company had to do with WiMax, such as a home network device that integrates Wi-Fi and WiMax wireless connection. Other cool gadgets were a product that used femtocell technology, a miniature cell tower that is designed to boost local cellular reception.