The coolest phone I ever had was the Kyocera Smartphone. It had a flip open panel and a touchscreen. Using Palm OS, it had an intuitive app called Graffiti, which allowed for fast writing with a stylus, which it converted to regular fonts for display. You could take notes like this while on speakerphone. It also had the ability to beam information directly to another phone using IR tech. I liked it more than pretty much any other phone I’ve had. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyocera_6035
I recall seeing one of those clunkers in the early 80s. I was at a pool party, and a doctor had it with him to stay On Call. The private eye in the old Perry Mason episodes (late 50s-early 60s) had a mobile phone in his car with the corded handset.