Only in the sense of how digital zoom is implemented by 99.9% of current cameras that can be achieved in the same way by cropping in software.
A system such as Fuji's 40+ megapixel camera allows digital zoom that is better than just cropping doesn't it?
The age of the phone cam is analogous to the mp3'ing of music - giving up qualities and possibilities for convenience.
Any camera with a single focal length lens gives up control of
perspective and "true" control of depth of field (although software can simulate the latter).
Perspective is the relationship between things near to the lens and things far away. A telephoto lens (more "mm" of "focal length" and generally bigger and longer lenses physically) brings distant objects visually closer to subjects in the foreground and makes them look bigger in comparison.
It also flattens distance, making, e.g., mountains in the distance both bigger and in nearly the same plane as whatever's close to the lens.
And it has less depth of field, i.e., a narrower range of what's in the zone of sharp focus.
A wide angle lens (fewer "mm" of focal length) does just the opposite, i.e., it can make something in your own back yard look far away from a person near the camera.
These important aspects of being able to control how an image looks truly can't be simulated in any fixed focal length picture-taking device.
Here's a primer:
Lens focal length has personality. It brings a certain character, a feeling, to a shot.
*****
Which is not to say that phone cams can't be innovative or useful (and many have unique features that even spendy DSLR's don't).
And some famous photographers shot with a single focal length for their whole careers, but most use a range of focal lengths, either with a series of dedicated single focal lengths (which can still have the best optical quality possible of any lens) or a zoom or several (which add lots of convenience, but generally at the cost of some optical quality and lens speed).
Also, while I'm not familiar with the phone you mentioned, I have looked into the Lumia high-end cams.
And what they do IS a form of digital zoom - they simply have enough info in the image file to let you pick different parts of the image that still have enough resolution to look good on screen or at reasonable print sizes so that you can extract a number of interesting pics from a single snap.
But not change any of the relationships discussed above.
As a photographer, and appreciator of photography, I'm pained at how this information is simply disappearing from the knowledge banks of most who point a lens at things. Still, we're getting by with our snapshooting new world and more things than ever are being photographed and videoed.
