This is somewhat strange. I mean, low end dslrs generally have good image quality (the d3xxx series from Nikon is excellent technically) but bad haptics (the controls are too modal, terrible menu systems, etc.) - I still think that they feel nicer than grasping a phone to take pictures, but it's debatable. The auto modes on the phone are better but they have a lot less to work with.

I used the example of big prints (big here means bigger than A4) because it's the most immediate demanding application that I could mention. With a phone you also don't have the resolution to spare to apply perspective correction to photos of buildings, dynamic range to deal with less than gentle, bright scenes, etc.

What phones do have, is heavy post processing. You can make DSLR photo look much better than for a phone, but you need to spend some time in photoshop. Phones are now doing photoshopping for you, so out of the box they tend to often look more attractive.

The sensor itself is great, but they come with budget lenses. Not just optically mediocre, but they're slow, usually starting at f/4, so you're throwing a lot of that sensor advantage away compared to a phone with f/1.8.

I have a 3 year old print on my wall of my kids, taken with an iPhone 5, cropped from a horizontal framing to vertical, and then printed at 11x14". I did a bit of post-processing on it to sharpen it up, and it looks fantastic (until you look at it from less than a foot away). I need to repeat the process with the X's camera. ;)

>Not just optically mediocre,

Modern kit lenses are optical marvels. A couple of decades ago you couldn't buy a lens with the quality and versatility of Nikon's 18-55mm kit lens.

Mirrorless cameras fixed most of the dSLR haptics. A newish Panasonic with a Leica or fixed Lumix lens will take better photos than any phone. The disadvantage is that you might not have it on you. Heck, my old Ricoh GRD3 takes better photos than the phone.

Depends; I don't like single-dial ones. The Sony fullframe ones are decent (but I prefer directly coupled mechanical focus and real aperture rings, most FE lenses don't have those, sadly) and have exp. comp. dials, which I find useful.

Leica M rangefinders still have the best controls for non-action photos, which is a bit sad for a design from the early fifties.

> The auto modes on the phone are better but they have a lot less to work with.

That's probably the basis for my impression. I basically only use auto and am not educated enough in photography to use manual mode in most cases.

You don't need to be especially sophisticated to enjoy some basic advantages of DSLRs - eg aperture priority (you tell the camera what aperture size you want, it works out exposure time and ISO) is an easy first step. (This controls, essentially, what bits are in focus for your shot.) Plus it's a feature few phones offer, or indeed can do much with, as they have such a tiny aperture (5mm of glass to let light in, say).

Increasingly I'm happy enough with a phone (giggle pixel 1 which has a halfway decent camera + software support) for walkabout use, but the benefits of a small DSLRs for holidays or other special events is hard to beat.