Xiaomi 14 review – The Solid Compact Flagship

The Xiaomi 14 series is one of the latest lineup from Xiaomi in 2024 for the global market in order to refresh the previous Xiaomi 13 series. There is three models, Xiaomi 14, 14 Pro and 14 Ultra but for the Malaysian market, only Xiaomi 14 and 14 Ultra available nationwide.

Lets dive into Xiaomi 14 to take a deep look on the performance and optics aspect of the phone.

Design – Compact as it can be for a powerhouse

Now this is not a surprising thing that Xiaomi retains a compact form factor since this is their follow up tradition and moreover they have the Ultra already, so the Xiaomi 14 makes sense especially for those wanting a smaller, lighter device to carry around and really fit in their pockets, weighting at just around 190 grams and thickness at around 8.3mm, it is so easy to hold too with the smooth back with no finger print smudges and if it is dirty, it can be easily wiped off with just a soft cloth.

While being compact, the camera island bump remained there but I find that less intrusive when place on the flat surface, but there is an included soft case inside so it can just placed flat on the surface like table and provides a better grip while using the phone. If you used an iPhone, I suppose you are comfortable with the size given that is almost the similar size.

The rest remains your standard over the button and USB C placement along with dual firing speakers which to be honest, Xiaomi did a good job in fitting all the bells and whistles including the under display fingerprint scanner.

The Xiaomi 14 comes in three colors, black, white and jade green, which all of the color is matches on with the side frame and specifically on the back, its made of glass.

Display & Audio : Mighty on sound, crystal clear viewing

Although it may look small, it still packs in a 6.36 inch LTPO display with Dolby Vision to start with. But that is not just the advantage, especially for those who use their phone actively outdoors, the display is capable of reaching it’s peak brightness up to 3000nits, that is just makes things easy to navigate under the hot sun. Despite that the Xiaomi 14 can dynamically goes up to 120Hz that makes the display smoother while not in use, it will dial down itself as low as 10Hz in order to converse battery power and usage. With a peak density of 480dpi I would say that the display is pretty packed on with richer, fuller colors with great balance in contrast when we are testing with some high quality video, which translate to a nice streaming experience, including gaming as well which indeed it has up to 240Hz touch sampling rate with HDR10+ support and Widevine L1 certification.

Lets get on to the audio side, the Xiaomi 14 has dual firing speakers as mentioned, which supports Dolby Atmos with the usual customisable equaliser and eight pre-sets from Rock to Blues. While the Xiaomi 14 can be small, don’t let the size actually fool you as it can really pump out load audio with some degree of clarity into it, I would not be expecting some heavy bass around, but at least there is with balance of treble overall, or otherwise connecting it to an earbuds would likely a great choice too for those who prefer personalised audio with their headsets or what not.

Camera : Pro Level Images

Night Shots

Day Time Shots

This could indeed one of the biggest selling features of the Xiaomi 14, as every year at least there is a degree of improvement, and this one is no exception. This time around, the phone has a triple Leica tuned 50MP rear camera setup with dual pixel PDAF, laser AF, OIS, and telephoto OIS with up to 3.2x optical zoom. One of the major advantage as quickly identify is the better inclusion and improvement of the optical zoom which at least gave a degree of quality when taking zoomed photo, of course anything beyond the level is digital zoom, however it is pretty much expected when zooming too much meaning that there is certain degradation in picture sharpness, but should you need to do that beyond it, you will still get an identifiable image with certain degree of detail, all thanks to the post processing and AI.

50MP images are expected to be a binned image but still sharp when zoomed on the processed image. We do however find a slight downside, foreground image is real sharp, no lack in details, but backgrounder may be less focused however it is nothing major comparing to a normal image capture. In many situation, automatic capture mode works well and the best with Leica Vibrant, while Leica Authentic retains all the possible color and tones according to what is being captured, retaining the best originality.

Portrait on both front and rear camera works well on all day and night situation so I have no complain on that, a pretty excellent job in bokeh and identifying background and foreground.

While the Xiaomi 14 is lacked of 8K 30FPS capture, I still love the beauty of the 8K 24FPS mode which is still a cinematic frame capture that still holds strong as one of the pocketable camera that you can carry around with good frame pacing and low latency recording, while 4K 60FPS still is the best common resolution that mostly will use and the Xiaomi 14 did not disappoint either, with my same finding of great retaining quality and stable frame rate, with very minor washed out colors in certain darker areas, otherwise, this is still one of the best you can get out there with selectable LUT and also feature 10bit recording.

Performance : Flagship Class all the way

This is no surprise, the Xiaomi 14 came with the flagship level Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen3 SOC with 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 512GB of UFS 4.0 fast internal storage as a start. Of course being a flagship you get all the latest bell and whistles like WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.x, along with proper NFC support for payment.

As a powerhouse in a small phone, it does an incredible job in handling the heat, which Xiaomi puts in IceLoop system chamber that provides 3 times the thermal efficiency compared to traditional VC, resulting in longer gameplay before hitting throttle mark over 35 minutes on games such as Genshin Impact. Needless to say, any other multitasking activities besides gaming will just run smoothly without worries.

Over our experience, the Xiaomi 14 charges real fast with it’s 90W charging, enabling full charge in just less than 40 minutes over it’s 4810MAh battery capacity which in a typical usage scenario, can last over a day without issues.

Now towards the UI, with the latest HyperOS along with Android 14, several under the hood improvement has been implemented and refined with better, faster response time when booting up, restarting, opening and switching apps. UI has been simplified slightly tad a bit with icon changes, along over with seamless connectivity across other Xiaomi/Redmi/Poco product such as IOT, Earbuds and Smartwatches. This has been all along part of Xiaomi objective and this time around with HyperOS, they did it well.

The last part before closing as above is the benchmark for reference.

Technical Specifications

Verdict, rating, conclusion

Xiaomi is here and again they succeed in creating a compact flagship, a beauty in your hands that can be pocketed easily, yet holds so much performance and improved camera capability, optimised cooling and battery consumption. Small can be mighty and for those who prefer the ease of use or even a camera phone enthusiast, give this a shot, with a very reasonable and compelling price tag from RM3499 with 256GB internal storage and RM3799 with 512GB of internal storage. All of this, without breaking the bank.