So back in the day you could hold home to pull up Google assistant and tell it to translate whatever was on your screen. No matter what app, browser, etc it just worked. I have no idea why they ever got rid of it. Now with the modern version of tap to translate text has to be highlight-able in order to be translated, which is a bone headed decision. It's like they never use the stuff they make.

The LG V10 had the smartest way I've seen to handle the notch: by keeping it on a corner, and using the top of what was left of the screen to display quick-access icons, notifications, and the clock. The rest of the screen kept the good old 16 by 9 aspect ratio with a square display. Kind of peeves me to see video players cropping part of the video where the notch is nowadays...

Knock code, wow, I didn't even remember it, but yeah it was pretty neat. I would say it's the IR blaster for me. It was quite useful.

Smaller, narrower phones generally. Blackberry keyboards (and slideout keyboards) in particular.

Loved the various hardware oddities of the moto Z line: a rear fingerprint scanner that was easy to use while holding the phone, and of course the magnetic attachments. Used to carry two batteries that could hot-swap, and a game controller in my bag.

I had an old flip phone that came with a demo of Uno. I could play a single hand, then reset the demo and play again and again. There was only a nag screen when you were exiting/restarting the demo, and not a single other ad.

Passed hours with that little game.

I miss mobile gaming when it was like that.

I read this as planes and was gonna say the little wings they give you as a kid. I'm still gonna say it cause I miss that

Sticking with LG the little AOD app icon that would pop up when you get a notification on the V60. Forgot how much I missed it.

Notification LED's, a REAL proximity sensor (not just the Selfie Camera), the headphone jack, a dedicated Fingerprint Sensor (because under display sensors are still bad).

the neatest thing about pixel phones for me was the squeeze to snooze... I'm hanging on to my pixel 3 because of that, since I constantly need alarms and to postpone them for medicines etc. they removed it on pixel 5 onwards and no other phone seems to have it

a big shame that it doesn't allow you to assign it to other things though ... google sucks

Well, I suppose is old/discontinued, but my current phone has a motorized camera (Poco F2 Pro) I am not a selfie guy, so I could not care less about it, having no notches nor punch hole camera is nice AF.

You can even hide the navigation pill and mix it with some apps like Connect for Lemmy and you literally get 100% of content in your screen lol.

The OnePlus 7 Pro and 7T Pro had a pop-up front-facing camera. No notch, no pinhole, no buttons at the bottom to mar the perfect full screen. It was gorgeous. My (tragically bricked due to my own water-based stupidity) OnePlus 7T Pro 5G McLaren is probably my favorite phone I ever used.

Sharing contact information directly phone to phone.

Lock screen widgets, giving me information at an actual glance without the risk of getting sucked into other random bullshit.

A tactile keyboard. There was a time when I could text with my eyes closed (literally). Now it takes me 30 seconds to "type" out a text that should take < 10 seconds.