hi Spino
by throughput I mean that you can't pass video through the Arduino: it can generally only handle control signals. But it can easily tell a camera what to do!
Modern cell phones are very low power, in fact they probably consume a lot less less power with their lid closed, on standby, than the Arduino does. The cell manufacturers spends millions on power engineering, while on the other end of the scale, to save costs, Arduino uses a 39 cent regulator that is very power inefficient.
good luck
D