The shot of Intel's booth above speaks volumes about the company's plans and priorities for 2011—not so much what's in the picture, but what isn't. Last year, the wall to the right housed a huge array of mobile Internet devices (MIDs), but now it's blank. The whole section in front of that wall was filled with MID demo units, and the section next to it was filled with netbooks. Now, the netbooks have been relegated to a single little station in front of that blank, MIDless wall.

Then there's the story the crowd tells. The netbook station is relatively empty—those devices are yesterday's news. This time, the crowd is pushing its way in for some hands-on time with the MID's wider, thinner successor: the tablet.

Among the popular tablets are the the Slate from HP, and the slick convertible number from Samsung. Both are shown below, and are based on Oak Trail.

The Samsung convertible is particularly compelling. It's not actually a whole lot thicker than an iPad (my Nexus S is in the picture above for a reference), and it's quite light. When it's in tablet mode, it actually feels like a one-piece tablet—there's no screen wobble, like you get with so many convertible tablets.

The screen slides up to reveal a full-sized keyboard.

We're looking forward to spending some time with these Oak Trail tablets, soon. As for MIDs and netbooks? We don't miss them.

Aside from the tablets and netbooks, another large swath of Intel's sizable booth is dedicated to TV, in one form or another. The company had a number of Smart TV-related stations, including some stations related to add-on boxes for IPTV.

The remaining stations were more on the "gee-whiz" theme, with one gesture control demo that looked less advanced than Kinect.

In all, it's really clear that Intel is massively focused on TV and tablets for 2011, at least in the CE market. As for Sandy Bridge, we'll be getting some hands-on time with it tomorrow, so stay tuned for details on that.