Originally posted by RobA_Oz The phone part of its capability is a minor part, these days. The so-called "smart phone" is really a true Personal Digital Assistant - another case of our own language limiting our thinking.
However, the ergonomics of a smart phone are not really conducive to other than snapshot-taking, even though they can be put to use making good pictures, too, and because convenience trumps performance standards just about anytime. On the other hand, when you use a well-designed dedicated camera, it's a bit like using a performance motorcar in that you feel like you want to use it to get the best out of it, because the picture-making (or driving) experience is so good, and the end-point is another matter entirely, even if it's the main objective of the exercise. Should the ergonomics of the smart phone improve to the point where the experience is that good, then it will have become a camera with benefits.
It is called smartphone and not a PDA because the key feature of the device, like it or not is the chip that allow the device to be connected, to take phone call, send an receive text... If you let people choose between having only the PDA capabilities (display agenda, take notes and so on) or have only communication capabilities (phone call, text, mails, chat) or only picture/video capabilities most people would focus on the communication part.
As for picture quality snapshots and alike if I search for top photo taken with 5Dmark-III or an iphone 6 the thing is, they all look great. Maybe the 5D-III picture look to have more subtle rendering but that about it.
Overall there likely more great pictures taken with smartphones than with DSLR. First a DSLR doesn't make you good, second they so fewer users that you can't really compete.