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Las Vegas (CNN) -- Some call the Consumer Electronics Show "Christmas for geeks."

On the eve of the largest gadget conference on earth, CNN was here in Las Vegas to figuratively shake the presents under the tree and eavesdrop on gift givers to try to figure out what will define this year's show.

Many companies will be unwrapping their big-ticket items at their own news conferences on Wednesday, with still more to debut at the Las Vegas Convention Center starting Thursday.

In the meantime, we put together a list of gadgets and applications that stood out from the crowd at the pre-show events on Tuesday.

A Windows-Android mutant tablet-laptop

This Lenovo device is both a laptop and a detachable touchscreen tablet.

Tablets are hot, and Chinese computer maker Lenovo managed to draw crowds to its booth at CES Unveiled with one of its own.

The LePad hardware is a spitting image of Apple's iPad, but the software is anything but.

The touch-screen tablet runs a version of Google's Android that's been heavily retooled and not necessarily for the better. It splits the application list into two tabs: work and play. The former consists mostly of productivity software, and the later has a heavy focus on multimedia.

But the LePad is rooted in Lenovo's comfort zone. The tablet acts as the screen for a IdeaPad U1 hybrid laptop running Windows 7. Users can then detach the LePad from the clamshell hardware to tote it as a touch-screen gadget.

CES: Preview the future of technology

The transition from the Android software to the more desktop-centric Windows 7 can be jarringly slow. But this is a prototype. The final version will be available in China first and in other countries later.

The LePad was one of the only tablets we got to touch on Tuesday, but expect plenty more in the next couple of days. We've already had sightings of some from Motorola Mobility and Vizio