Xiaomi 14T Pro Review

Verdict

A faithful distillation of Xiaomi’s existing flagship phone experience that opts for considered compromises to deliver impressive value.

Introduction

Xiaomi’s T-series phones serve as a mid-year refresh that riffs on the company’s current flagship lineup. That’s exactly what the Xiaomi 14T Pro aims to offer; placing the same emphasis on performance, display and camera prowess, but in a more affordable package.

This generation, in particular, feels as though it takes a more meaningful leap than previous entries in the line, by being the first to include wireless charging and the first T-series entry to showcase both Google’s and Xiaomi’s latest AI abilities.

If you’re curious how the 14T Pro sets itself apart from the standard Xiaomi 14T that it launched alongside, despite both packing the same excellent 6.67-inch display and large 5,000mAh battery, for a little extra cash the highlights include a beefier chipset, faster wired charging (as well as the aforementioned wireless charging) and an enhanced 50MP lead camera.

Design

• New ‘Deco’ design language is bold
• IP68-certified against dust and water
• Available in Titan Gray, Titan Blue or Titan Black

I’m torn on the design of the Xiaomi 14T Pro. I like that it serves up a more coherent look with the standard Xiaomi 14 series, something its predecessor shirked in favour of a decidedly different and seemingly unrelated style. But the ‘Deco’ aesthetic (as Xiaomi calls it) otherwise leaves me a little cold.

There’s no question that this is a well-crafted device, but the choice of forms and the surface finishes used, don’t flow as elegantly as some of the company’s previous offerings.

That said, on a technical level, the Xiaomi 14T Pro is an undeniable step up. It carries over the same flagship-class IP68-certified protection against dust and water added to the 13T series, and boasts a straight-edged aluminium alloy frame that Xiaomi claims is 116% stronger than the one found on the Xiaomi 13T Pro.

At 209 grams, it’s a sturdy, weighty phone that has a certain presence about it (especially in Titan Black, featured in this review), with details like the textured metal power button reinforcing this idea.

There is some rounding along the edges of that aluminium frame, aided by the border of the phone’s 3D curved glass back, that works to soften the phone’s otherwise brash appearance, but ergonomically they don’t do enough the same level of comfort in-hand as the likes of the Xiaomi 14 or an iPhone 16 Pro. That textured back glass is great at repelling fingerprints but is also a little slippery too, with a feel similar to Teflon.

Screen

• 6.67-inch ‘CrystalRes’ AMOLED display
• ‘1.5K’ 2712 x 1220 resolution
• Up to 144Hz dynamic refresh rate

There’s little to say about the display on the Xiaomi 14T Pro that hasn’t already been said about the panel found on its predecessor; the only major alteration here being even higher brightness values (capable of 1,600nits in high brightness mode, with a 4,000nit peak output) that further improve the look of HDR content and outdoor legibility against bright sunlight.

With the best screen-to-body ratio on a T-series phone yet (93.3%), the flat display serves up superb visuals, with the inky blacks and vibrance you’d expect of a high-quality OLED panel; helped by its support for 12-bit colour depth, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. Viewing angles are also excellent, with practically zero colour distortion and only minor brightness drop-off when viewed off-angle.

The main asterisk I’d place on the 14T Pro’s display is that you’ll seldom benefit from its impressive-sounding peak refresh rate. Whether I had the rate set to automatic or manual, with Performance mode enabled or not, the majority of the UI appears to run at 120Hz at best, with the phone’s maximum only really cropping up within benchmarking apps like GFXBench.

Even lowering the visual settings in the likes of Minecraft and ensuring uncapped frame rates were enabled (a game that famously can run uncapped) the 14T Pro would not allow itself past 120Hz.

Xiaomi also adds a heap of functionality to its phone’s displays, with the 14T Pro’s panel boasting features like AI-controlled dynamic colour temperature, as well as a wealth of manual customisation on the viewing experience within the phone’s settings. A TÜV Rheinland-certified hardware-based blue light filter and 3,840Hz PWM dimming ensure viewing comfort in low light.

Performance

• MediaTek Dimensity 9300+ SoC
• Up to 16GB LPDDR5X RAM
• Up to 1TB UFS 4.0 storage

I was not ready for the amount of oomph Xiaomi was prepared to stuff inside the 14T Pro. While benchmarks only tell part of the story, the new 4nm Dimensity 9300+ chipset powering the phone ate up Geekbench 6 tests, spitting out scores that surpassed giants in the market, like the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-powered Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro (with X Mode enabled).

Gaming performance too, was suitably superb, although it’s clear that aggressive thermal management from the phone’s ‘3D IceLoop’ cooling system is at work behind the scenes; meaning performance will drop in extended gaming sessions.

The 14T Pro is also equipped to be a great multitasker, with a peak 16GB of RAM and up to a whopping 1TB of storage available in most markets (a higher ceiling than is available on the standard 14T).

Even the baseline 12GB of RAM and 256GB of space should be enough for most users, especially as the power efficiency and speed of UFS 4.0 storage (just like you’d find in the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra) can run double duty as additional RAM; with the option to allocate up to 12GB extra, within the phone’s settings.

Like its predecessor, cutting-edge WiFi 7 is available on the 14T Pro, with Xiaomi’s Surge T1 Tuner employing AI-driven optimisations to deliver reported 12% more stable WiFi and Bluetooth performance, and a 20% improvement to GPS reliability. Inclusions which are tricky to test but unquestionably bring added peace of mind to proceedings.

Camera

• 50MP Xiaomi Light Fusion 900 main sensor
• 50MP ultra-wide + 12MP 2.6x telephoto
• Up to 8K / 30fps video recording

Although, at a glance, the 14T Pro appears to use the familiar 50MP + 50MP + 12MP rear camera setup found on the previous generation, Xiaomi’s own 1/1.36-inch Light Fusion 900 sensor now leads the charge. It’s the same 50MP sensor that debuted in the standard Xiaomi 14 and again comes paired with optical expertise from long-time partner Leica.

You have to choose to shoot between ‘Leica Vibrant’ and ‘Leica Authentic’ with the ‘vibrant’ stock being my preferred choice for general smartphone photography purposes (for social media or to throw onto my TV), but if you’re looking for a more dynamic finish, then Authentic adds a vignette to scenes and isn’t afraid to keep shadows in-scene, which is refreshing when Google’s and Apple’s imaging pipelines seemingly hate shadows in 2024.

Leica Vibrant (left), Leica Authentic (right)

There are two things that Xiaomi needs to work on to grant the 14T Pro a killer camera: dynamic range and autofocus performance. While the company shouts about the Light Fusion 900’s “stunning 13.57EV high dynamic range” and its ‘FusionLM algorithm’ I found that in high contrast scenes, it would struggle to reconcile the extremes of light and dark effectively; usually meaning shadow detail was lost, becoming flat.

Similarly, autofocus tended to grab further back into frame than I was generally aiming for; this wasn’t a consistent issue, but one that I found myself correcting for numerous times, especially when shooting subjects (people and pets), rather than landscapes and the like.

Neither issue massively impacted my enjoyment of shooting with the Xiaomi 14T Pro but these are areas I think Xiaomi should consider addressing in future camera-improving software updates.

In general, the 14T Pro’s camera system otherwise impresses, with great natural fall-off that you’d think would negate the need for portrait mode, if it weren’t for its ability to apply a touch of the optical magic reminiscent of the outstanding Xiaomi 14 Ultra (one of the best camera phones currently out there), at four different focal lengths.

Portrait mode off (left), portrait mode on (right)

Colours pack punch without being overbearing and low light capture feels markedly improved, with far more colour and detail retention than I expected; resulting in shots I’d happily use. Although heavy-handed, the processing on the selfie camera makes it great for faces, provided you’re happy for the phone to boost exposure and – if you let it – apply virtual makeup too.

Selfie: portrait mode off (left), portrait mode on (right)

Video at up to 8K at 30fps is an impressive inclusion too, but just the tip of the iceberg, with regards to the 14T Pro’s rich video capture feature set. There’s the MasterCinema profile that adds a more filmic look to footage, Movie mode for capture in a 2.39:1 aspect ratio with added depth of field (although this is limited to Full HD resolution capture) and Director mode, which serves up manual controls, levels, a histogram and the ability to connect and control multiple other Xiaomi devices’ cameras remotely.

Actual video quality delivers pleasing results, with good stability, pleasant colours and the phone handles motion well enough, however, noise and other artefacts can creep in if the sensor doesn’t get enough light, with dynamic range once again being a notable hardware limitation here (HDR shooting can be toggled on, which helps with blown out parts of a scene, it should be noted).

Software

• Xiaomi HyperOS atop Android 14 at launch
• 4 years of OS updates and 5 years of security updates
• Includes AI features from both Xiaomi and Google

While we’re on the subject of the camera, Xiaomi takes a decidedly more metered approach to AI image manipulation than the likes of Google. While Pixel phones front-load a heap of AI-based features and processing at the point of capture (such as the recently introduced shooting mode ‘Add Me’), Xiaomi leaves most of that to its Gallery app, after the fact.

Introduced with the Xiaomi 14 series earlier in the year, the bulk of the 14T Pro’s AI smarts relate to imaging. AI Expansion uses generative fill to let you crop out from an image and fill in the border created with generally passable results, as well as the far more outlandish AI Portrait feature that takes a collection of shots of the same person and uses them to construct a persistent model that can then be inserted into text-based image generator with surprising fidelity.

Is it cool? Yes. Is it creepy? Also yes. Is it useful? Answer unclear.

The 14T Pro’s AI repertoire extends to its Notes and Recorder apps too, boasting speaker identification, transcription and translation. It’s a little rough around the edges in practice, but no more so than similar efforts from the likes of Samsung that I’ve tried.

If it’s usable now, it’s only going to improve from this point, and likely become functionality that the likes of journalists and students will value the world over. Google’s Circle to Search, which arrived with the Galaxy S24 series earlier in 2024 is also slated to arrive on the 14T and 14T Pro, but not until October this year (unavailable to test at the time of writing, as a result).

Beyond the buzz of AI, the 14T Pro also happens to be the first of the series to switch from MIUI out of the box to Xiaomi’s revamped HyperOS user experience. The truth of it is that, for the most part, if you’ve used a MIUI device, you might have to spend some time digging around HyperOS to understand where the differences are.

Most of the benefits are behind the scenes, with the promise of a smaller install size on your device’s storage, better optimization and better device interconnectivity (primarily with other HyperOS-powered and Xiaomi-made devices).

As Android-based user experiences go, it’s certainly not lacking in features but that also makes it a little overwhelming. Moving down price points in Xiaomi’s smartphone portfolio also seems to welcome more bloat and more ads, with duplicate browsers (the 14T Pro I tested came with Chrome, the Mi Browser and Opera pre-installed), as well as third-party offerings of varying usefulness; from Spotify and TikTok to Booking.com.

I also noticed ads in more places than MIUI/HyperOS experiences I’ve used previously, in the Theme store, within games as part of Xiaomi’s Game Turbo overlay and even within home screen folders. It makes parts of the user experience where you wouldn’t expect to find them feel less personal, less private, and I hope Xiaomi reverses this approach going forward.

Battery

• 5,000mAh battery
• 120W wired, 50W wireless charging
• No power adapter in box

The Xiaomi 14T Pro continues the line’s streak of including big batteries and impressively rapid charging, with a 5,000mAh cell that supports the company’s 120W fast-charging tech.

On paper, Xiaomi promises a full recharge in a blistering 19 minutes and although my testing fell short of that (I consistently reached 100% in about 23 minutes), fast is fast. I didn’t even enable the phone’s Top Speed mode, which implies even quicker refueling, at the expense of heat build-up.

The caveat here is that, unlike the Xiaomi 13T Pro, in most markets the 14T Pro doesn’t come with a power adapter in-box at all. Xiaomi sent me an official 120W Xiaomi charger to test the phone, but if you want to do the same, it’ll cost you £39.99 in the UK.

To soften the blow, the 14T Pro does also happen to be the first of the series to gain wireless charging, with a top speed of 50W promising a recharge time of about 45 minutes; in practice, I appreciated the extra convenience.

There is a wealth of technologies at play to try and keep the 14T Pro alive and kicking for as long as possible on a single charge, with the display’s AdaptiveSync tech being one such example; scaling the refresh rate between steps of 30Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz and 144Hz, as the situation requires.

As appreciated an inclusion as that is, I can’t help but feel if Xiaomi had simply gone for an LTPO panel with a truely dynamic refresh rate (the Xiaomi 14’s display can scale from 1Hz to 120Hz, for example) power efficiency would have been even better.

At 6.75 hours of screen on time, the 14T Pro’s longevity isn’t to be sniffed at, lasting a day of heavy use or a day and a half if you’re careful; I just expected it to last even longer, considering that capacious 5,000mAh battery on board.

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