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The Consumer Electronics Show, held each January in Las Vegas, is as exhausting as it is expansive. The jam-packed exhibit space and private meeting rooms that pack the Convention Center, half the Strip, and beyond all add up to an imperfect-but-still-invaluable snapshot of the year ahead in tech, from TVs to PCs to mobile gizmos. That's especially true given that companies tend to show off some products that don't end up shipping until nearly a year later.

So as crazy as the show can be, I wouldn't miss it. And I'm already speculating on the products that'll be on display at CES 2010--from the ones that'll unquestionably show up to ones I'd love to see, but don't expect to encounter.

Herewith, five of the latter:

1. Truly killer tablets. The whole industry is abuzz about touchscreen computers that resemble oversized smartphones. We'll unquestionably see at least a few in Vegas. But the idea remains nascent, and many questions remain unanswered, ranging from what operating system a tablet should run to just how it should compensate for the lack of a keyboard. I expect the CES tablets to feel like rough drafts--interesting ones, maybe, but rough drafts nonetheless.

2. Smartbooks that are...smart. The next big thing in low-cost laptops beyond the netbook is supposed to be the smartbook--a category that has some overlap with tablets, although many smartbooks will have clamshell cases and keyboards. They'll be even cheaper and smaller than netbooks, and even more dependent on a good Net connection. I don't think the world is ready yet for computing devices that are utterly useless sans Internet. But I'll reserve judgement until I see what CES has to offer.

3. Exciting desktops. Laptops may have started out as an offshoot of the personal computer, but today they are the dominant form of PC. Desktops are still everywhere, and are still enormously useful for all sorts of applications. But they're stuck in a rut, as if nobody's interested enough to pour creativity into new designs. I'd love to be surprised by a CES desktop or two that's at least as inventive as the tablets and smartbooks we'll see.

4. The one Internet TV box everyone wants. There are an array of gadgets for pumping TV from the Internet onto a TV set, as well as TVs that do the job without requiring a box. Some of them aren't bad, but none have come anywhere near changing the way that America watches television. I expect more announcements at the show, and hope that someone will figure out a design that's so powerful, easy, cost-effective, and entertaining that it's just plain irresistible. Bonus points if it involves content I can also watch on my PC and my phone.

5. Affordable, capacious Solid-State Disks. I get tempted by the speed and reliability of SSDs every time I buy a new PC--until I do the math and remember how small the capacities remain. (I bought my most recent notebook, with 500GB of traditional hard-disk space, for less than a 256GB SSD costs all by itself.) Solid-storage is going to make sense at some point, and I don't think we'll need to wait much longer. But I'm more hopeful for CES 2011 than for CES 2010.

I don't mean to sound too pessimistic. One of the best CES experiences of all is when you're dazzled by something you didn't expect to see. And if at least a couple of the products on my wish list turn out to be present and accounted for in Vegas, I'll feel like I hit a jackpot.

So where would you like to see PCs, consumer electronics, and gadgets go in 2010?

More CES musings on WePC.com:
The Best of CES's Past
CULV: A Better Atom Alternative?
CES 2010: My Expectations
The CES Guessing Game