There exists a sliver of the phone market full of phones called “Premium Mid-rangers.” While the name has the term “mid-ranger”, phones in this section of the market don’t come with the typical performance that we see with true mid-rangers. A prime example of a premium mid-ranger is the Xiaomi 14T Pro, and I was given the opportunity to review this phone.
Xiaomi launched the Xiaomi 14 last year, and it was the company’s most powerful phone at the time. It was a well-reviewed phone, and it should have come as no surprise from a Xiaomi flagship. However, the company seems to have adopted Samsung’s method of releasing a more budget-friendly version of its phones the year after the original handset. As such, the Xiaomi 14T Pro is a more affordable alternative to last year’s version, coming in at a few hundred dollars cheaper.
However, the question is: does the experience feel a few hundred dollars cheaper? Since this phone is a stripped-down version of the Xiaomi 14, what are you missing out on? Where are the biggest compromises? Will you be better off just paying more for the original Xiaomi 14 or the Ultra? These are the questions that I’m going to answer in this review. So, let’s jump right in!
Xiaomi 14T Pro Review: Design
The design of this phone really hammers home a point; many of the smaller companies tend to deliver the most exciting designs. Not to throw shade at Xiaomi, but the Xiaomi 14T Pro has the same kind of cold, sterile, and clinical design that we’re seeing from companies like Samsung, Google, and Apple. There’s a certain sleek and professional look to the phone that I appreciate. But, there’s something missing.
The aforementioned companies managed to add a certain identity to their phone designs that makes them stick out. If you see an iPhone, there’s no denying that it’s an iPhone. The same goes for a Galaxy phone or a Pixel phone. However, there’s something extremely plain about the Xiaomi 14T Pro’s design. It’s a straightforward slab of glass and metal with a large square camera island on the back, and that’s about it. I’m not saying that what Samsung or Apple did is miles ahead of it, but the Xiaomi 14T Pro’s design just doesn’t stick out.
It’s a nice design, but I’ve seen the plain square camera design before numerous times from other companies. It feels as played out as the circular camera island. Everything else about the design is pleasing. There’s some nice curvature to the back glass as it dips to meet the metal frame.
Also, that very camera bump that I was ragging on does look nice. The back glass is this nice matte glass. However, the camera bump contrasts this with some glossy accents. Those accents add some character to the design. The camera bump itself is actually chamfered, which almost reminds me of the metal phones from back in the day. Lastly, the camera lenses also have glossy internal rings that shimmer in the light. The matte back of the phone is dotted with beautiful accents, which I love.
Something else that I love is the color. Honestly, I think that the color really saves this design. The Xiaomi 14T Pro has this icy blue color. It’s got to be one of my favorite colors of all of the devices that I’ve reviewed. I don’t know what it is about this color, but I think that it’s absolutely beautiful. I feel like it’s the main reason why I like looking at this device.
Overall
Don’t get me wrong, the Xiaomi 14T Pro is not a bad-looking phone by any means. It’s a beautiful device. The contrast of matte and glossy materials, the curved glass, the overall aesthetic; they all give the phone a certain classy look. It’s just that it feels a bit safe. It’s almost like Xiaomi didn’t want to rock the boat with the design. I know that this phone is the “T” version of an already existing phone, but we’ve seen mid-cycle offerings with different designs from their originals. Also, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra has a different design.
Xiaomi 14T Pro Review: Build quality
Again, this is a stripped-down version of the flagship-grade Xiaomi 14, but it sure as heck doesn’t feel like it. Picking up this phone, I don’t feel like I’m holding a cheap device at all. I’m met with the cool sensation of metal and some satisfying heft.
The thing about this phone is that it hits that nice balance between thickness and weight that really makes a phone feel premium. It’s about hitting a sweet spot. There’s definitely some weight to this phone letting me know that it was made with some quality materials. Be that as it may, it’s not so heavy that it feels cumbersome to hold.
When it comes to the thickness, the Xiaomi 14T Pro is on the thicker side, but it’s not too thick. It’s comparable to phones like the recent iPhones or the current Galaxy S phones.
This balance of thickness and weight lets me know that this is a solidly built phone that will last me years. There’s a good amount of weight for its thickness, and that adds to the overall feeling in the hand. When a phone is on the thicker side, but it feels light, it will feel cheaply made. This is because it feels hollow. I’ve used phones like that.
Bend test
I performed a light bend test on the Xiaomi 14T Pro to see if there was any flex to it. It wasn’t an extreme bend test (there’s a guy for that), but I wanted to see how easy it was to get the phone to bend. I’m happy to report that it didn’t show any give during the bend test. Also, there weren’t any sort of creaks or other sounds when bending it. This is a solidly built phone.
Feeling in the hand
When it comes to the feeling in the hand, this is a very comfortable phone to hold. I spoke about how the back glass curves to meet the frame. Well, the frame also has a curve to it as well, so there aren’t any sharp corners that will press into your palm when you’re holding it.
Overall
The Xiaomi 14T Pro technically isn’t the company’s flagship, but if you put it into my hand, I’d have a hard time telling. Ostensibly, the company would have had to cut some corners on the build quality to bring the price down, but I just don’t feel it. It’s a solidly built and good-feeling phone that feels every bit as premium as a flagship.
Xiaomi 14T Pro Review: Display
As always, a large part of a phone’s experience is the display, and I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. I reviewed the Poco F6 series of phones, and Poco is a sub-brand of Xiaomi. So, I was sure that the company used similar screen tech and calibration for the Xiaomi 14T Pro, but I don’t really think that’s the case. The display in this phone is a little different, and not for a bad reason.
Brightness
We’re at the point where sub-$400 mid-range phones are coming out with incredibly bright displays. So, it should come as no surprise that an $800 premium mid-ranger can get the job done.
The bright Florida sun was no match for the display on the Xiaomi 14T Pro. With some of the more affordable phones with bright displays that I’ve reviewed, I felt that they were just a few steps behind what I’d get from a flagship. I’d see my reflection and environment just a bit more than I would have liked. With the Xiaomi 14T Pro, I didn’t really feel like that was the case. The screen is incredibly bright.
Colors
The color production was really the only thing that I could complain about. It wasn’t bad at all, but I just felt that the saturation was a bit safe. The colors were saturated, but they felt slightly dull compared to other OLED phones. I felt that the company prioritized balance over colors.
However, I think that the colors on the Xiaomi 14T Pro are a bit more saturated. There’s just a bit more punch to the colors, and that adds some visual appeal. While the display on the Poco F6 was responsible with how the colors are, the Xiaomi 14T Pro’s is a bit funner. That’s not to say that the colors are oversaturated. On the contrary, I think that the company struck the right balance of saturation with this screen. There’s just a bit more life and vibrancy to the colors that really make the display stick out while being responsible so as not to go overboard. They’re what I like to call Responsibly Saturated.
The thing about the colors, and this is the same way I feel about OnePlus displays, is that they’re perfectly calibrated to make the default colors of the software look their best. They’ve been adjusted so that the system icons and menus look amazing, and they really do.
Extra features
There aren’t too many extra goodies with this display, but there are a few. Firstly, it runs at a full 120Hz, which makes navigating the interface super smooth. Also, this is an HDR display, so you’ll see a bump in the dynamic range when you’re watching certain content.
Overall
I’ve reviewed a ton of phones, and many of them have spectacular displays. Be that as it may, a good screen will always stick out, and this is one of them. This display is super bright and it has some amazing colors. There’s not much more to say other than this is just a fantastic display.
Xiaomi 14T Pro Review: Speakers
I’ve reviewed a ton of affordable phones, and they’ve given me a varying degree of quality with their speakers. However, once you’re in the $800 range of price, the speakers NEED to be good. This is why it didn’t surprise me when I heard these speakers for the first time.
Bass
Starting off with the low-end audio, the Xiaomi 14T definitely delivers the goods. I tested the speakers out with some rather bassy music including “All I Ask” by Kenny Loggins. This song has some pretty deep and rich bass. The speakers do a good job of reproducing frequencies around the 100Hz range. Using a frequency visualizer, I saw some activity in the 63Hz range. Frequencies like those really add the low and rumbly characteristics to the sound.
What does this boil down to? I wouldn’t say that the speakers are the richest I’ve heard on a phone, but they’re up there. It sounds great, and you’ll hear it when you’re listening to music or watching movies. There’s enough depth to immerse you in the sound.
Treble
I think that the treble is also pretty great. Just like with the bass the treble on these speakers isn’t the best that I’ve heard, but it’s still no slouch at all. When listening to music, the percussion, higher synth, and higher instruments all cut through the mix, and there’s some punch to them. For example, snare drum hits typically peak at around the 4kHz – 5kHz range, and those sound crisp and clean with these speakers.
We tend to overlook the treble, but having crisp and clear higher tones adds to the sound greatly. The treble performance of these speakers is great.
Vocals
I’d say that the only weak point of the speakers is the vocal performance. That’s not to say that it’s bad. I just think that it’s not quite as impressive as the bass or the treble. Voices come through pretty clearly, but they could be better. Voices tend to be washed over by the rest of the mix sometimes. It’s just a little bit difficult to hear the voices.
This is something to know if you’re going to be listening to music with this phone. The voices just won’t be as good as the rest of the audio.
Volume and distortion
The speakers in the phone are plenty loud. You’re not likely to have them at full volume, but if you need to, you won’t have any issue hearing them. While being loud, they’re still pretty good at keeping the sound from getting distorted at the higher volumes. The audio sounds pretty clear at the highest volume level.
Overall
While I say that the weakest part of the experience is the vocal performance, that’s not really saying much. In all honesty, the vocals are average, and that just seems weak compared to everything else that’s exceptional.
That being said, you’re not going to have a bad experience at all with these speakers. They’re a full package, bringing strong bass, treble, volume, and distortion control. The vocals are good, just not as strong as the others.
Xiaomi 14T Pro Review: Performance
Surely, with all of the praise I’ve been giving this phone, this MediaTek-powered non-flagship phone should dip in the performance department, right? That’s not the case. MediaTek has come a long way since the dog days of the mid-2010s, and its Dimensity 9000 series processors are its most powerful chips.
The Xiaomi 14T Pro is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 9300+. This is the most powerful chip that the company has to offer at the time of writing this review, and I’ve had nothing but smooth performance with it. Using this phone, I didn’t see any stalls or dropped frames. Navigating the interface, jumping through apps, and performing other tasks is extremely smooth and fluid. This display runs at 120Hz, and I never saw that slow down. Plainly put, this phone is a speed demon.
By the numbers
Diving into the benchmarks, I used 3DMark and GeekBench just to get some numbers. Starting off with the 3DMark numbers, I ran this phone through the Wildlife Stress Test, which ran a one-minute real-time rendered animation and monitored the performance. The Xiaomi 14T Pro got a Best Loop Score of 3680 with a Lowest Loop Score of 2,601. The frame rate dipped to as low as 10fps with a peak of 26fps. All in all, it had a stability of 70.7%.
Moving onto Geekbench, this phone got a single-core score of 2118, which is one of the best scores on the market. It beat out the Galaxy S24+ (2091) and scored just below the Galaxy S24 Ultra (2172). That’s pretty impressive, but what’s more impressive is the multi-core score. It scored 6914, which beats the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s score (6782).
I know that benchmark scores don’t tell the full story, but these scores, in tandem with the amazing real-world performance I got from using this phone all add up to an amazing experience. The Xiaomi 14T is a beast of a phone.
As for the next test, I rendered a one-minute video in 1080p using Capcut. This process usually takes between 20 and 40 seconds for weaker phones. Faster phones can tackle this within 10 seconds. The Xiaomi 14T Pro rendered it in just 11 seconds.
Overall
You’re going to get perfectly smooth performance using this phone, and there’s not much more to say about it. It breezes through everything that I throw at it.
Xiaomi 14T Pro Review: Gaming
With a processor as powerful as the Dimensity 9300+, you’re more than likely going to use the Xiaomi 14T for gaming. Well, I put this phone through its paces to see how it is with video games. To test this, I got some of the most graphically intensive games on the Google Play Store. These are Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero.
There’s no doubt that these are some of the prettiest-looking games on the market, and they can highlight a device’s weakness. Starting off with Genshin, I cranked the graphics all the way to their highest settings. I even left the useless motion blur effect on. Regardless, this phone was able to conquer the game with no sweat. While playing it, the gameplay remained smooth without any dropped frames or slow-down.
It’s the same story with Zenless Zone Zero. This is a pretty hectic game, as the action sequences get rather wild. Still, the Xiaomi 14T Pro maintained a smooth frame rate throughout. There weren’t any times when I felt that the Dimensity 9300+ was struggling.
Also, with it able to tackle these more graphically intensive games, the Xiaomi 14T Pro is more than powerful enough to handle any 2D game on the market. So, if you’re planning on using this phone as a gaming device, you won’t have any issues doing so. It’s powerful enough to tackle any game on the market.
Heat performance
I played these games for extended periods of time, and it took a while for this device to heat up. After a solid 20 minutes of playing, it was still pretty cool. It took about an hour for the phone to actually get hot. Even then, it was manageable, so I give Xiaomi props for the heat performance of this phone.
Xiaomi 14T Pro Review: Camera
Much of the time, when a phone company launches a stripped-down version of one of its phones, there’s a pretty big hit to the camera department. The cameras in these phones usually get pretty mediocre hardware. That’s not the biggest issue because if you’re looking to save money on your phone, then you’re not quite looking for the best camera tech in the world. However, having a good camera is always nice, and I think that the camera in the Xiaomi 14T Pro is nice.
Exposure/contrast
I didn’t really have much of an issue with the exposure of these images. The images taken in the direct sun were nicely exposed. They weren’t under-exposed or over-exposed.
The only image that was a bit dark was the one of the trees below. Even though there was proper sunlight, it was a bit dark.
As for the contrast, I think that this phone was able to create some nicely contrasty photos. Even shots not taken in direct sunlight have some good contrast.
Colors
I’m a little conflicted on this section. I think that the colors are bright and vibrant, but I also think that they’re just a bit much. I can tell that the software is boosting the colors in the scene a fair bit. I think that some of the colors stray into the cartoonish territory. For example, the leaves below have their candy-green color to them.
Also, the flowers in this image have such a saturated and punchy color.
However, it’s not all bad. In this image, I like how the sky is colored. It seems a bit more accurate to how the sky looked in real life.
I also love how this camera conveys warmer colors. The image of this wedelia during golden hour looks absolutely sublime. The yellows and greens look gorgeous.
If you like the extra layer of color added to the pictures, you’ll love this camera. There’s a nice pop of color to these images, but they can be just a bit too much at times, so that’s something you’ll need to keep in mind.
Details
The Xiaomi 14T Pro comes with a 50MP camera, but it bins down to about 12MP for regular shots. So, you’re getting a pretty average number of pixels per shot. I find that this phone is really good at picking up the details in the shot. When zooming in, I can punch in a fair bit before I start to see pixelation.
Some cameras I’ve reviewed would have sort of a watercolor effect to them when you zoom in, but I don’t see that here. The picture stays pretty crisp even when you’re zoomed in pretty far.
Zoom
I took a few shots testing out the zooming capabilities of this phone, and I think that you get the best shots when zooming in 5x. Zooming into the sign brought out some more details in the text and the surrounding area.
Zooming into the tree also looked really nice. However, you don’t want to zoom in much further than 5x, as things get pretty bad. The last image shows the camera zoomed in all the way.
Low-light
When it comes to the low-light photography, it’s pretty good. I took pictures of these items in gradually diminishing light, and the camera was able to produce pretty detailed images in all scenarios.
I can still see some of the details in the back glass of the Vivo X Fold3 in the last image. The last images were taken with very little light, so the camera did a great job of brightening up the scene.
Ultrawide camera
The ultrawide camera is pretty standard, but it does produce some nice results. It will punch out just a bit so that you can fit more into the shot, but it’s not drastic. I think it’s behind the curve compared to other phones on the market.
Also, there’s a pretty drastic shift to the exposure. I find that, when I use the ultrawide camera, the images come out a bit underexposed. However, it’s not that bad. I was still able to get some good shots with it.
My one complaint
The main complaint that I have with the camera doesn’t have anything to do with the hardware. If you’re a person who wants to have some insight into the images you’re taking, you’re going to want to know the resolution you’re taking pictures at. Well, the camera app doesn’t give you that information. The settings are only Low, Standard, and High settings.
I hate it when companies feel like they need to dumb things down for people. Xiaomi, you can show people the resolution of their images. A few numbers won’t scare them away. It just feels like we’re being babied.
Overall
I’m sure that Xiaomi had to cut some corners with this phone’s camera and deliver a diminished experience compared to the Xiaomi 14 and Ultra. However, most people won’t feel the compromises. People will see the great images that this camera can produce.
Xiaomi 14T Pro Review: Battery
Moving onto battery life, the Xiaomi 14T Pro is definitely an all-day phone for heavy users. While testing out the phone, I never had to reach for the charger in the middle of the day, and there was always some juice left in the tank when I went to bed. If you’re a more moderate user, then you’re going to get a day and a half out of it, and that’s what I mostly got.
For a more clinical test, I played a 24-hour video at 1080p with the screen brightness up to max. The phone lasted just over 19 hours, which is pretty great. The Galaxy S24+ lasted 22 hours while the Galaxy S24 Ultra lasted 25 hours, so the Xiaomi 14T Pro is nipping at the heels of those flagship phones.
Unfortunately, there was no charger included in the box. However, the company did provide a USB-C cable.
Overall, the battery life of this phone is great!
Xiaomi 14T Pro Review: Software
As for the software powering this experience, we have Xiaomi’s HyperOS. This is a pretty heavily customized Android skin that comes with some fun perks. There are some nice visual effects like the app icons bursting into a million particles when you remove them from the home screen. Also, there’s a “Relaxed” animations mode that will give you some nice and slow animations throughout the UI.
You can customize the phone’s theme using the theme store. In the theme store, you can choose from wallpapers, icon packs, and system UI elements. Themes come with all of these things, but one thing I love is that you can pick and choose what you want from a theme to be applied.
Say, if you see a beautiful beach theme with a cartoon water background and icons that look like sand castles. You can choose to only apply the icons from that theme and keep the rest of the elements from your current theme. You can mix and match themes.
One thing I don’t like about HyperOS is that it’s adopted the iOS-like notification panel mentality. When you swipe down on the left side of the screen you’ll see the notifications, while you’ll get your control center if you swipe down on the right side. It’s useful, but derivative.
Xiaomi 14T Pro Review: Other features
There’s one feature that’s a bit bittersweet. I love having the double-tap-to-wake gesture. I’ve been using it since the LG G3 days. There’s an option for this function with the Xiaomi 14T Pro, but there’s a caveat. You have to have a specific theme assigned. You need to be using the standard theme. So, if you’ve customized your theme, you can’t use it, which is unfortunate.
Lastly, I love how fast and responsive the under-display fingerprint scanner is. It’s an optical scanner, which is slower than an ultrasonic scanner, but this one is the fastest and most accurate optical fingerprint scanner I’ve used. Honestly, I think that it’s on par with other ultrasonic scanners I’ve used.
Xiaomi 14T Pro Review: Final Verdict
At $800, the Xiaomi 14T Pro costs more than a flagship killer, but it’s not trying to be one. This is an appropriately priced phone that delivers on all fronts of the smartphone experience. The screen is gorgeous, the build quality is great, the speakers are amazing, the camera is nice, and the battery life is top-notch.
Xiaomi delivered a strong smartphone experience. While the price is a little up there, you’ll still feel like you’re saving money. You’re getting a true flagship-grade experience, and it’s an experience that’s worth more than the price. The Xiaomi 14T Pro is an incredible device, and it’s well worth every penny!
