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Do digital cameras really do anywhere near the same computations? Like, they usually have like some low-end shitty microprocessor at most, while for example an iphone has an insanely powerful CPU. Sure, plenty part of this processing happens in the ISP, but surely not everything.

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No, they don't. It's not just the CPU, it's also that phones will often take bracketed exposures and use sensor data to align them correctly and automatically create an HDR image, for example. Either that or taking lots of short exposures and stacking them. It's not just in post processing, the magic already happens while taking the image itself.

People who think digital cameras do anything close to what modern phones do don't have a clue. They're the opposite of 'Phones can do anything a DSLR can' people and they are just as wrong.

Well somebody doesn't have a clue...

In camera HDR: https://www.slrlounge.com/in-camera-hdr-intro/

In camera focus stacking: https://www.youtube.com/embed/E5zX1E5wAiE

Sometimes high end "pro" cameras will skip those features because they expect people to process those image on a computer anyway, but in general a modern camera will beat a phone hands down.

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