Redmi Note 14 Pro Review
The Redmi Note 14 Pro brings several premium features to the mid-range segment, staying true to Xiaomi’s tradition of offering value-packed devices. Its standout design, with an IP68 rating and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection, makes it a durable and stylish option in its price range. The primary camera and the vibrant AMOLED display add to its appeal, especially for casual users who prioritise aesthetics and multimedia. However, the phone faces tough competition from rivals like the Motorola Edge 50 Neo and the OnePlus Nord CE4, which offer cleaner software experiences and slightly better overall performance. While the Redmi Note 14 Pro’s battery and charging speeds are decent for most users, heavy gamers or power users might find alternatives more suited to their needs.
Over the years, the popular Xiaomi Redmi series has become a fan-favourite in India’s smartphone budget arena. The series has always strived to democratise premium smartphone features while not being too hard on the wallet. Xiaomi recently launched its Redmi Note 14 series in India which attempts to follow in the footsteps of its beloved predecessors, however, concerns about the rising prices of the Redmi Note series are afloat in the tech space. I got the Xiaomi Redmi Note 14 Pro for review, which at its ₹24,999 price point, seems like a very interesting mid-range option.
While it offers premium features like IP68 dust and water resistance, Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection, and a large 5,500 mAh Silicon Carbon battery, competitors like the Motorola Edge 50 Neo (review), iQOO Z9S Pro, and OnePlus Nord CE4 (review) rear their heads, challenging the Note 14 series’ dominance in the space. Will the Redmi Note 14 Pro be enough to entice Indian consumers or will the competition prevail? Let’s find out in my detailed Redmi Note 14 Pro review.
With a svelte design, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 14 Pro stands out amidst the crowd at first glance. The curved body, the textured leather back panel, and the distinctive squircle camera module are instantly eye-catching. The leather back panel on my Phantom Purple review unit features a colour block design with shades of lavender adorning the four segmentations which looks pretty neat. The Ivy Green variant also follows a similar design language, but the Titan Black variant sports a single colour on the back.
The leather rear panel, while stylish, feels slightly rough to the touch, especially compared to the softer in-hand feel of Motorola’s Edge 50 Fusion. That said, with a thickness of 8.4 mm and a weight of 190g, the phone offers a comfortable grip and excellent weight distribution. The glass camera module adds a unique visual contrast, enhancing the overall design.
The Redmi Note 14 Pro’s frame may be made of plastic, but it convincingly mimics the look of premium metal. The buttons offer satisfying tactile feedback, and the optical in-display fingerprint sensor impresses with its accuracy. The vibration motor isn’t the best though.
While the display bezels aren’t perfectly even, they remain slim for the most part. Xiaomi has struck an excellent balance with the design, making it eye-catching without pushing it to the point of being overdone.
As for durability, the Redmi Note 14 Pro is one of the best you can get at this price point. The phone comes with an IP68 dust and water resistance rating, which means it is fully dust-proof and the phone can be submerged up to 2 meters in water for 24 hours. Its predecessor only offered IP54. Additionally, at ₹25,000 where most phone brands compromise on display protection, Xiaomi is offering the industry-leading Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection.
While it doesn’t get MIL-STD-810H protection like the Motorola Edge 50 Neo, it makes up by offering Victus 2 where the Edge 50 Neo only offers the dated Gorilla Glass 3. All in all, the Redmi Note 14 Pro is an exceptional upgrade when it comes to build and design, and is possibly one of the best-designed phones money can buy under ₹25,000.
While the Redmi Note 14 Pro’s display specifications remain largely unchanged as compared to its predecessor, this area does see one key improvement – brightness. The Note 14 Pro has the same 6.67-inch AMOLED display with a 1.5K resolution, 120 Hz refresh rate, and HDR10+ and Dolby Vision support. It is still a 12-bit display with support for 68 billion colours. The brightness, on the other hand, has been bumped up to 3,000 nits of peak brightness. However, the HBM brightness stays the same at 1,200 nits.
Now, even though there aren’t many significant differences here, the display continues to be excellent for this price bracket. The colours are vivid, the display is sharp, and the viewing angles are fantastic. HDR content looks sublime with brilliant highlights and deep blacks. In my tests, the display touched 1,182 nits on High Brightness Mode, which is great, so sunlight legibility is amazing.
The Motorola Edge 50 Neo holds a slight edge in the display department, thanks to its support for LTPO technology. This enables it to seamlessly adjust its refresh rate between 1-120 Hz, enhancing battery efficiency. But the Redmi Note 14 Pro does edge out the OnePlus Nord CE4, as it only offers a 1080p display.
The Redmi Note 14 Pro steps up its performance game with the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Ultra, a solid upgrade over the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 powering its predecessor. With a peak clock speed of 2.5 GHz, it delivers noticeable speed improvements. That said, the RAM options see a slight downgrade, as the Note 14 Pro caps out at 8 GB, unlike the Note 13 Pro, which offers a 12 GB variant. On the storage front, you get 128 GB or 256 GB of UFS 2.2 storage.
Starting with synthetic benchmarks, the Redmi Note 14 Pro isn’t the best performer. The OnePlus Nord CE4 and the iQOO Z9S Pro soundly beats it at most benchmark tests by a significant margin. I ran the CPU Throttling Test to test the phone’s performance stability and it did throttle to 78 per cent of its peak performance, however, here too, the iQOO Z9S Pro shows it up as it did not throttle at all.
Similarly, in GPU benchmarks, the iQOO Z9S Pro and the OnePlus Nord CE4 have quite a lead. Even the Motorola Edge 50 Neo beats the Redmi Note 14 Pro by a small margin. Nevertheless, the scores aren’t abysmal for the price. However, in day-to-day usage, I did face some stutters and lag, especially when using the camera app for a prolonged duration and playing games like Call of Duty: Mobile.
Performance-wise, the Redmi Note 14 Pro simply doesn’t match up to the likes of the speedy iQOO Z9S and OnePlus Nord CE4, but casual users shouldn’t face too many issues.
When it comes to software, this is where most Redmi Note devices falter, and unfortunately, the Redmi Note 14 Pro is no exception. While HyperOS is smooth and feature-rich, it is riddled with bloatware. Numerous third-party apps come pre-installed, including games like Block Blast!, Bubble Shooter, and Dust Settle, as well as applications such as Agoda, Fitbit, and Snapchat. In comparison, options like the Nothing Phone (2a) and Motorola Edge 50 Neo offer clean, bloatware-free software, making Redmi’s bloatware and ad situation feel like a nightmare.
The phone comes with Android 14 with HyperOS on top and Xiaomi has promised 3 years of software updates and four years of security updates, which is pretty decent.
The Redmi Note 14 Pro also debuts an array of AI features including AI Erase, AI Magic Sky, AI Cutout, and AI Image Expansion. But these aren’t implemented to perfection. Something as basic as AI Erase delivers inconsistent results on the Redmi Note 14 Pro. I also tested the phone’s AI chops by running several AI benchmarks, and it got a Digit AI-Q Score 56/100, which is a pretty decent score in this price range.
Nestled within the glass camera module of the Redmi Note 14 Pro is a triple camera setup featuring one standout sensor and two that barely make the cut. The star here is a 50 MP Sony LYT-600 sensor with Optical Image Stabilisation, accompanied by an 8 MP ultrawide camera offering a 120-degree field of view and a rather uninspiring 2 MP macro shooter. In the competitive landscape, phones like the Motorola Edge 50 Neo, with its versatile telephoto lens, and the Nothing Phone (2a), boasting a larger primary sensor and a higher-resolution ultrawide camera, outshine the Redmi Note 14 Pro in the camera department.
In daylight, the primary camera pulls its weight and outputs some stunning results with good dynamic range and detail. Colour reproduction is a tad vibrant, but it works for those who share pictures on social media without any edits. The natural depth of field in close-up shots looks great too. Portrait photography is another highlight in ideal lighting, with good skin tones and detail retention, however, edge detection isn’t the best in the segment.
Sadly, the ultrawide camera and macro shooter don’t quite reach the same levels of greatness, even in ideal lighting conditions. Detail in the corners of an ultrawide photo is quite soft and the macro camera doesn’t always provide usable results as there’s no stabilisation. The ultrawide camera also has quite a bit of barrelling issues.
In low light, the primary camera does falter a bit. The results are somewhat inconsistent. At times, you will get a crisp shot but there are times when there’s some noise introduced and the shadows are severely crushed. The ultrawide camera and macro cameras aren’t very usable in low-light situations. I prefer the Motorola Edge 50 Neo’s camera output as it provides more consistent results across different scenarios.
As for video recording, the phone supports 4K at 30 fps from the rear camera and 1080p at 60 fps from the selfie shooter. Videos look good in daylight, but they lose out on detail in indoor settings and low-light situations.
With a large 5,500 mAh Silicon Carbon battery, I was expecting the Redmi Note 14 Pro to blow me away with its battery life and efficiency. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. The phone’s battery depleted pretty rapidly with heavy use, especially when gaming or shooting 4K video. I only got about 4.5 hours of screen-on time with heavy use and 5.5 hours with medium use, which is quite disappointing.
In the PCMark Battery Test, the Redmi Note 14 Pro only ran for 622 minutes or 10 hours and 22 minutes. The OnePlus Nord CE4 showcased much better endurance, so if battery life is your primary concern, you are best off looking elsewhere.
The 45 W charging speeds are also pretty slow compared to the competition. The phone charged from 0-100 per cent in 47 minutes. On the other hand, the OnePlus Nord CE4 charges its 5,500 mAh battery in just 29 minutes.
The Redmi Note 14 Pro brings several premium features to the mid-range segment, staying true to Xiaomi’s tradition of offering value-packed devices. Its standout design, with an IP68 rating and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection, makes it a durable and stylish option in its price range. The primary camera and the vibrant AMOLED display add to its appeal, especially for casual users who prioritise aesthetics and multimedia.
However, the phone faces tough competition from rivals like the Motorola Edge 50 Neo and the OnePlus Nord CE4, which offer cleaner software experiences and slightly better overall performance. While the Redmi Note 14 Pro’s battery and charging speeds are decent for most users, heavy gamers or power users might find alternatives more suited to their needs.
At ₹24,999, the Redmi Note 14 Pro is a solid choice for those who value design and durability, but if you’re looking for the best performance or the cleanest software experience, it’s worth considering other options in this competitive segment.
