Hmmm...the main (48 mp) camera sensor on the iPhone 15 Pro is about 10 x 7.5mm and has optical image stabilization.

The 16 mp camera sensor on the Pixpro FZ55 is 6.17 x 4.55 mm and has no optical image stabilization.

Maybe you just like the "look" from the Kodak more?

Bear in mind that sensor size in megapixels can be full of shit in terms of image quality. Cramming so many pixels into a tiny sensor such as that of a smartphone camera obligates a tiny size, resulting in poor-quality light capture and thus worse images in several ways. Hence the heavy use of reprocessing tricks in phones.

On the other hand, the much larger pixels in a camera with an ostensibly smaller number of megapixels can create superior visuals, especially if coupled with a more robust lens.

I've used 24MP Sony mirrorless cameras that blow any smartphone I've ever seen out of the water on image quality and depth, even though many phone makers these days cram absurd amounts of tiny pixels into their little cameras.

You overlooked that I listed the actual sensor sizes above! The iPhone's sensor is almost 3 times the area of the Kodak's. In general, small inexpensive consumer cameras use small sensors to keep the price low and to make it easier to add a large (5x) optical zoom in a small package. (Larger sensor = larger lens).

You're right and I should have elaborated a bit more. I was referring more generally to camera sensors vs phone sensors, in this comparison, it applies less, but im still willing to bet that the lens and the individual pixels in the kodak contribute.

So I don't actually like shooting at 24mm (the iPhone 15 Pro 48MP FL). If we adjust that to a more typical 35mm (I prefer 40mm personally) or 50mm we end up at either a 1.5x crop or a 2x crop of the iPhone's sensor.

That gives us ~21MP for 35mm and 12MP for 50mm. The 35mm crop is almost a match for the sensor size of the Kodak, and the 50mm is smaller.

Then we have to deal with the inescapable processing that the iPhone does, even in "RAW" mode (which, while better than JPEG, is not anywhere near RAW). We are stuck with JPEG but no major processing on the Kodak, so no imagined detail.

We can compare lenses as well, but to do that properly I would need to do a like for like comparison. I may actually do that between the iPhone, Kodak, and Panasonic.

All in, your simplistic approximation just highlights how much you've bought into the marketing instead of understanding how cameras work.

True enough. If you're using a significant amount of digital zoom on an iPhone, the optical zoom on the larger camera will become an advantage. Once you switch to the native 77mm camera range on the iPhone it should even out again/advantage the iPhone. And of course the Kodak has no 13mm equivalent lens at all.