This week’s consumer electronics show in Las Vegas attracted record attendance. My preview of gadgets for our readers, we’re sure, won’t disappoint anyone.

LAS VEGAS – This week I met up with CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo and Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC show “Hardball.” Both were broadcasting live here from the NBC Universal set at the 2011 Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show.

Aside from the NBC talent glitz, most of the 127,000 showgoers were exploring the new technologies and breakthroughs in the electronics industry that took place over the past 12 months and will now change life for the rest of us over the next year.

This is definitely the year that the computers that trust advisors use get smaller.

Notebook-size “tablet” computers like the iPad — which we predicted here a year ago — made a huge splash at the show for combining the form factor of the iPad with Google software that most people can actually use in their working lives.

Laptops are great, but they still leave advisors spending most of their time behind the desk when they should be out in front of clients. But until now, mobile computing just didn’t have what it takes to run databases, spreadsheets and other apps on the go.

The upshot is that, as the Wall Street Journal is saying, the days of the desktop PC look numbered.

The most powerful of these new computers are also the smallest.

Expect to see Motorola’s “superphone,” the Atrix 4G, hit the market by the end of the first quarter. This is actually a next-generation smartphone, but has so much processing capability that it’s been designed to dock into a screen and keyboard and run a full desktop work station.

Click the picture or here for EXCLUSIVE video.

A Motorola spokesman wouldn’t quote me a price beyond “competitive,” but showed me around the system. You can surf the net, do email, make calls via the built-in speaker phone, process documents and more at your desk — then pop the phone out and get the same functionality on the go.

AT&T will sell the phones with docks and will provide data service. If you have been looking for a way to cut the cord of the office computer in the long term and just rely on the Web-capable phones you need anyway, this may be a way to make that happen.

Note: These phone-computers use Google’s Android operating system, which means it will run Google’s version of most of the Microsoft Office programs and, of course, gmail-based email systems.

Android phones will also run all the major financial client relationship management (CRM) systems except for Microsoft’s own Dynamics platform, but a translation is on the way.

While Windows fans may appreciate a pure Windows phone/PC solution, the fact is that very few advisors use Windows phones these days. Between Blackberry, the iPhone and the various Android handsets, maybe 10% of all advisors are on a Windows-based smartphone.

Next in line on a pure astonishment basis, but maybe not so much from an office use point of view: 3-D screens without glasses. A company called eLocity featured the new product here at CES ahead of a fourth-quarter commercial launch, and other manufacturers are already lining up in this space.

To provide a 3-D effect, these systems actually track your eye movements to create a sense of depth.

A 3-D client report or PowerPoint presentation may be breathtaking, but unless you have Jim Cameron on your team, it is unlikely to do much of the heavy lifting when it comes to capturing and deepening client relationships.

Nevertheless, Toshiba is also moving toward 3-D (as the above leaked photo from LaptopMag reveals) and word has it that Apple will announce a 3-D iPad, iPhone or both later this year.

Too many screens?

As for trust advisors who spend too much time already staring at screens, there’s hope for your eyes.

A company called PixelOptics launched “electronic eyeware” at the show — reading glasses that automatically refocus when you tilt your head. All you need to do is electronically “teach” them your prescription, and the lenses do the rest.

The photo doesn’t really do it justice. Click it or here for video.

As for client relationships…

While technology almost never lets a wealth manager or other advisor replace the face-to-face work of interacting with clients, it can make the minutes or hours you have to spend with them more efficient.

You can send emails. You can spend all day on the phone. You can Twitter your heart out.

But if you don’t have the time to record your notes, schedule your interactions and analyze what worked with a particular prospect and what didn’t, all that work really just amounts to grinding your gums.

That’s where CRM software comes in — and why CRM for financial services may become the hottest thing out there this year.

Figure the key player in this space right now as far as advisors are concerned is old-fashioned Microsoft Outlook. They’re using their email program to do everything: schedule appointments, run task lists, keep contact lists.

However, two advisor-specific platforms are on the rise. Redtail has roughly a 23% share of the market and Junxure is right behind.

Schwab just announced a massive CRM venture incorporating Junxure and other vendors, and about 50% of the substantial advisors on the Schwab platform — the ones with over $100 million in AUM — plan to adopt a formal CRM strategy this year.

Jerry Cooper, senior editor, The Trust Advisor Blog. Scott Martin and Steve Maimes contributed to the research.

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