Your phone camera's images look 'great' because they're been very heavily processed (now with all sorts of "AI" nonsense that is leading to us not being able to

Your phone camera's images look 'great' because they're been very heavily processed (now with all sorts of "AI" nonsense that is leading to us not being able to trust photos from cell phones) and are taken with a wide angle, small aperture lens that yields very wide depth of field. Compare images side by side, especially at indoor lighting levels, and you'll see just how much more detail even a 10 year old micro four thirds or digital SLR captures compared to the cell phone camera. Capture some images around 6400 ISO, too, and you'll really see what a mess cell phone cameras are. There's no getting around physics - the larger the sensor well, the more light it can collect and convert to electrical impulses. Top end cameras from Canon, Nikon, and Sony have been bumping up against the limits of physics for a while now - efficiency, noise, etc. My m4/3 camera which is now 10 years old still takes better pictures than any current cell phone camera on the market.