Motorola Mobility's Xoom tablet computer was the star of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in what could be a sign of renewed glory for a faded technology star.

"Motorola's got game, again," Morgan Stanley analyst Ehud Geldblum said when the Xoom made its debut on Wednesday.

Along with being declared the top creation at the dazzling gadget extravaganza, Xoom was also honored as the best of the scores of tablets introduced here as fresh competitors in a market dominated by Apple iPads.

Motorola also scored a victory with its Atrix smartphone designed to work with high-speed 4G wireless networks and which can be used in a dock to power a laptop.

Atrix won the top spot in a smartphone category at the official Best of CES awards sponsored by technology news website Cnet, which has editors pick the winners.

"We took big risks and they paid off," said Motorola Mobility chief software engineer Seang Chau. "We didn't know if people would get it; but obviously they got it."

Motorola was a mobile phone pioneer, filing its first patents for that type of technology in the 1970s.

The company stumbled and fell from a leadership position after not moving quickly enough in a smartphone market seized by rivals such as Apple and Research In Motion.

Two years ago, Motorola planned to split into business equipment and mobile gadgets groups, but the move was delayed. Lack of direction caused it to lose more ground in the booming smartphone market.

The split was made official this week and the CES triumphs signal that Motorola may have found its stride.

"They made a comeback in one of the most difficult and competitive markets, and one of the worst recessions," said IDC mobile devices analyst William Stofega.

"I don't think anyone would have gone to CES and predicted the success they've had."

Many people had given up on Motorola, Stofega said in an interview with AFP, but paradoxically "it gave them time to change."

Motorola Mobility jumped into the bustling tablet computer market Wednesday when chief executive Sanjay Jha unveiled Xoom at CES.

The hotly awaited tablet computer powered by "Honeycomb" software tailored for such devices by Internet colossus Google will be available in the first quarter of the year, Jha said.

"This is really the next generation of tablets," Motorola Mobility device team head Alain Mutricy said as he held a Xoom in one hand at the awards ceremony.

"Our partnership with Google has been very intense and has enabled some great technology."

With a 10.1-inch (25.6-centimeter) screen, the Xoom is about the same size as Apple's iPad, which hit stores in April and has other leading technology companies around the world scrambling to catch up.

The CES accolades came just four days after Illinois-based Motorola split into two companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions.

Motorola Mobility will focus on mobility, the Internet and computing markets while Motorola Solutions will target next-generation communications solutions to government, public safety and enterprise customers.

"This has been a great week for us," Mutricy said of Motorola Mobility. "It is a good beginning.

Success remains a challenge. Jhan warning last month that the mobile phone unit would lose money in the first quarter of 2011.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek worried that any boost Motorola got from new gadgets might be short-lived and sales of smartphones could suffer when US telecom giant Verizon starts servicing Apple's coveted iPhone handsets.