I am an beginner enthusiast and I don't want to become professional ever. However, I want to be able to shoot good quality photos that can be used for personal purposes or sold off to say people, local business etc. but not to national geographic, art gallery etc. I do not want to be that good.

I have seen many posts here with variations of the theme "point and shoot VS DSLR". But none of those answer my question. Is there any POS (camera or mobile phone) which is comparable or equal to an entry level DSLR such as Nikon D3100 or Canon T3i, in terms of image quality, low light quality, changeability of lenses etc. at a SIMILAR PRICE ? I am a beginner and don't know if there are any other factors involved in the comparison. I don't really care about the portablility.

Also, I noticed that many POS have much more optical zoom (10X to 50x) vs basic DSLR (3x zoom with 18-55 lens). Is the higher zoom of POS not better than having to change lenses ?

PS: I am trying to select a beginner camera and I am confused.