Especially on babies, the smoothing or noise reduction is weird. A newborn has a very specific skin with an enormous amount of details/speckles/marks. It’s very hard to capture for some reason. Couldn’t do it with my phone, only with a proper camera and shooting in raw.

Hard agree. As a new parent, I bought a modern mirrorless camera before my kid was born, and the difference is noticeable. Especially, as you say, around skin details like milia (white spots on a newborn's skin) which often get wiped out on my Pixel (I'm sure by the AI processing).

If you are considering an expensive phone upgrade based off of the camera alone, consider buying a dedicated camera first, I say. I know the best camera is the one you have on you, etc...