Smartphone camera vs Canon 650D with shocking result

Clara May wrote:

I compared photos from my smartphone Samsung Galaxy Note 5's camera against my Canon 650D with Tamron SP 17-50 mm F2.8 and was blown away by the smartphone doing significantly better.

First of all, the Note 5's camera on Auto seems to be able to get the correct exposure the first time while I often have to fiddle with the Canon 650D's exposure compensation to prevent over-exposure.

Then, I notice that the Note 5's camera has a wider dynamic range than the Canon 650D. Its tiny lens also gives far better detail than my Sigma lens.

Compare the two photos I took of a morning scene. The sky was bright and I aimed just away from the sun. The Note 5 photo was taken on Auto. For the Canon 650D, I had to step down the exposure by -4/3 in P Mode to get some detail into the sky. If I step it down further, the rest of the scene will be too dark.

I am thinking of upgrading to the Canon 80D in the hope that it give me a big boost in picture quality but what do you guys think?

Image taken by Galaxy Note 5 smartphone on Auto

Image taken by Canon 650D with Tamron SP 17-50mm f2.8

I'm not surprised the SOOC JPEG from the Canon without HDR wasn't brilliant given the dynamic range of the subject - if you look at the histogram everything is either way to the left or way to the right. You could make it look much better in post processing by bringing out the shadows - especially from raw.

What does confuse me is how out of focus/blurred the Canon shot is - it is reporting the focus point OK around the center of the image - but nothing is actually in focus - camera shake maybe?