I Reviewed Late-2000s Digital Cameras. Allow Me to Remind You Why We All Switched to iPhones.

finally, a "what to buy" article that says "don't buy"

www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/iphone-camera-vs-old-school-point-and-shoot/

I still have an iPhone and I prefer the pictures my Fuji Finepix took back in the 2000s. It didn’t put that weird fisheye effect on landscapes that make background objects look like they’re a kilometre away when they were only a few meters away. I’m still surprised by how good those pictures are, and the way the lens automatically extends and retracts is just joyful. I never think that of my iPhone.

The pictures are more grainy, and have other shortcomings. But they look like what I saw with my eyes.

Probably has to do with focal length. There’s only so much you can do when the distance from the lens to sensor is only a few mm. So you’re going to end up with some perspective distortion. I think some phones might try to alleviate it with software.