There are some amazing cameras in the market...
I was thinking about buying and entry level DSLR with costs nearly a thousand dollars and that's a lot of money for me to spend in a camera so I decided to make a field test comparing an entry level DSLR that a good friend of mine did let me use and my iPhone 5s.
The results were impressive, I placed two pictures of the same subject side by side taken at the Dallas Arboretum and then I compared them, I even asked 3 non photographer friends about which picture they like the most and all of them liked the iPhone picture more... These were two iphone pictures preferred over the canon (which is an amazing camera). The canon was used in automatic mode, the same mode I would use for months until I learn how to manipulate its technical aspects though.
iphone 5s
Canon T3i
iPhone 5s
Canon T3i
iPhone 5s
Canon T3i
I don't want to imply that Canon is low quality, in fact I will some day buy a Canon DSLR but for now I will deal with some noisy picture and continue using my iphone... until I am ready to make the investment.