The first smartphone I owned was a ZTE Blade 13 years ago. As a budget phone, that definitely had compromised performance.
It's been years and years since I ever felt like my phone's performance was holding back its usefulness to me. I have only ever replaced my phone because the battery could no longer hold a charge or the charging port was damaged beyond use.
It has a camera, web browser, chat apps, and receives emails. It also makes calls and texts. It doesn't lag while doing these things. That's plenty.