Xiaomi 14T Pro review

Blazing specs at a hugely competitive price

At a glance

Expert's Rating

Rating of this product is 4 out of 5.

Pros

• Storming performance
• Decent cameras
• Very competitively priced
• Super speedy charging

Cons

• Cluttered software with incomplete AI
• Fairly dull design
• No charger included

Our Verdict

Xiaomi has once again shown itself to be a master of smartphone hardware at a hugely competitive price, with some significant improvements over the 13T Pro. Software continues to be its Achilles heel, however, with a cluttered UI and fresh AI features that don’t seem quite ready for prime time.

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Price When Reviewed

From £649

With Google going full-on flagship with its Pixel 9 price bump, it’s fallen to the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE and the Nothing Phone (2) to fill the grey area between mid-range and flagship smartphones. Now the Xiaomi 14T Pro is here to offer a slightly fresher proposition.

With a flagship-level Mediatek Dimensity 9300+ processor, an impressively specced 6.67-inch 144Hz OLED display, a potent Leica-branded triple camera system, and rapid 120W charging support, the Xiaomi 14T Pro seems to offer a lot of phone for your money.

Indeed, with a £649 UK retail price that carries over from the Xiaomi 13T Pro, this promises to provide the kind of smartphone bargain that’s been all too rare of late.

Xiaomi has made some welcome advances since its previous T-Pro model, though a couple of all-too-familiar gripes rear their head alongside some all-new ones. Let’s take a closer look.

Design & Build

• Bland but functional design
• IP68 rated
• IR blaster on top

The first thing to note about Xiaomi’s T-range is that it’s never been a souped-up version of the preceding non-T line-up. Rather, it provides a broadly flagship-flavoured experience with some smart concessions in order to hit a lower price point. A little like how Google does phones such as the Pixel 8a but more powerful.

In terms of design, the Xiaomi 14T Pro is a larger, bulkier, and slightly less premium-feeling phone than the excellent Xiaomi 14. It broadly sticks to the same layout, with a flat metal rim and a large square camera module, but with a less refined finish.

Said glass back now features a pleasing diffused glitter effect, which is way better than the Xiaomi 13T Pro’s highly reflective finish

It uses a more utilitarian matte glass back in no-nonsense shades of Titanium Black (like my test model), Titanium Grey, and Titanium Blue. Said glass back now features a pleasing diffused glitter effect, which is way better than the Xiaomi 13T Pro’s highly reflective finish.

That’s about the extent of any showiness on display here, though. The camera module, with its four rings, looks a lot like an electric hob.

This is quite a big phone, with a thickness of 8.4mm and a weight of 209g, but it remains firmly in manageable territory. It’s also built extremely well, with a solid feel and a flagship-level IP68 rating, meaning it’s as water and dust resistant as almost any other phone on the market.

I’m happy to note that the screen bezel, while far from skinny, is quite even all the way around, which makes the phone appear more premium than the Galaxy S23 FE from the front.

One welcome point of interest is the power button, which carries a nice textured finish to help differentiate it from the smooth, elongated volume rocker. There’s no room for a 3.5mm headphone jack or a microSD card slot on any of those thick edges, but that’s to be expected.

What with this being a Xiaomi phone, you get the quirky bonus of an IR blaster on the top edge. Using the preinstalled Mi Remote app, this allows you to take control of your Hi-Fi or your TV from your phone, which is a genuinely useful provision if you live in a house full of tech.

Screen & Speakers

• Excellent 6.67in 1220 x 2712 display
• 144Hz peak refresh rate
• Strong dual speakers

Xiaomi has stuck with exactly the same display as last year’s model, and you won’t catch me grumbling about that. It’s the same strong 6.67in AMOLED with a stand-out 144Hz resolution and a sharper-than-usual 1220 x 2712 resolution.

That 144Hz refresh rate is a tad gimmicky if I’m being honest. Even with the number of phones I use in the course of my job, I would struggle to pick a 144Hz screen over a 120Hz without twiddling with both side-by-side.

the Xiaomi 14T Pro screen has a level of smoothness (at least once you force 144Hz to be active all the time) that you only tend to find in gaming phones

I’d even make the case that 120Hz would be preferable on battery life grounds. The fact remains, though, that the Xiaomi 14T Pro screen has a level of smoothness (at least once you force 144Hz to be active all the time) that you only tend to find in gaming phones, as well as Motorola’s higher-end efforts.

It’s worth shouting out that resolution, which finds a nice sweet spot between FHD+ and QHD’s pixel overkill. Text and images look that little bit sharper here than on, say, the Nothing Phone (2) screen.

Brightness is solid, if far short of modern flagship standard. I measured a top brightness of around 580 nits with auto brightness off and the Sunlight mode booster on. It’s nice and colour accurate too, with an average Delta E of 1.08 (1 being the ideal) in the default Original colour PRO colour scheme.

Xiaomi’s in-display fingerprint sensors can be a little temperamental, but while the Xiaomi 14T Pro’s certainly isn’t the most reliable I’ve used, it proved just about consistent enough in day to day usage.

Like its predecessor, the Xiaomi 14T Pro features stereo speakers, and they do a reasonable job. They lack the depth and nuance of a genuine flagship like the iPhone 16 Pro or the Pixel 9 Pro (both selling for hundreds more), but the highs stay crisp even at fairly high volumes.

Specs & Performance

• MediaTek Dimensity 9300+ chipset
• Superb all-round performance
• Internal storage from 256GB to 1TB

Xiaomi takes an interesting approach to performance with its T-series. Rather than take the usual Snapdragon route, it typically goes with a top chip from Qualcomm rival MediaTek, which tends to work out cheaper.

Thankfully, MediaTek’s chips have come on leaps and bounds in recent years, and the MediaTek Dimensity 9300+ powering the Xiaomi 14T Pro is another stonker.

Our Geekbench 6 benchmark tests suggest a CPU that’s on par with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 phones like the Xiaomi 14 and the Samsung Galaxy S24, both of which carry a much higher RRP. Suffice to say, it positively stomps the Pixel 9 with its sluggish Tensor G4 chip.

The day-to-day experience of running this phone drives home the feeling that this is a genuinely flagship-level performer

GPU results are harder to come by, as Xiaomi often seems to block the usual benchmark tests ahead of launch. Anecdotally, I was able to run Genshin Impact on maxed out settings – that’s Highest/60fps – and still maintain very fluid performance.

It’s helped along by 12GB of RAM. There is a 16GB option out there too in certain regions, which seems like overkill but can’t hurt either.

Xiaomi 14T Pro benchmarks

The day-to-day experience of running this phone drives home the feeling that this is a genuinely flagship-level performer. Even with the 144Hz display forced on all the time, I didn’t pick up so much as a stutter while whizzing around between apps and home screens.

Similarly, the unlock process is nigh-on instantaneous, as is utilising the camera shortcut from the lock screen. I’ve been using Google’s Pixel 9 Pro and Apple’s iPhone 15 Pro in amongst my Xiaomi 14T Pro testing, and there’s been no tangible drop off in the generally snappy feeling I get with those more expensive phones. Quite the opposite if you’re talking about the Pixel 9 Pro, in fact.

There’s a generous spread of storage options too, starting from 256GB and topping out at 1TB. You don’t get any microSD expansion options, but that’s quite normal in today’s flagship phones.

Connectivity is bang up to date too, with support for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, alongside the expected NFC and 5G.

Cameras

• Strong 50Mp main and accomplished 50Mp telephoto
• Excellent 32Mp selfie camera
• 12Mp ultrawide just OK
• AI editing tools a mixed bag

Xiaomi really stepped things up with the 13T Pro’s camera set-up last year, and the Xiaomi 14T Pro subtly builds on that approach.

The basic specs are similar, with a 50Mp main camera, a 50Mp 2x telephoto, and a 12Mp ultra-wide. However, the main camera is slightly different to before, with a 1/1.31in sensor. That’s fractionally smaller than last year’s, but don’t take that as a bad sign.

Indeed, this appears to be exactly the same Light Fusion 900 sensor that Xiaomi used in the excellent Xiaomi 14, paired with the same large f/1.6 aperture. Together with a Summilux optical lens, Xiaomi reckons that it pulls in 32% more light than the Xiaomi 13T Pro.

Leica’s involvement here most obviously manifests itself the very first time you fire up the camera app, when you’re offered the choice of two basic styles: Leica Authentic and Leica Vibrant. This offers two appreciably different looks – the first more natural and ‘as seen’, the latter with more pop and colour, without sending things too gaudy.

It’s the same as the flagship 14 and 14 Ultra in this respect and largely a matter of taste, and I actually found my preference switching from shot to shot, so it’s fortunate you can flick between them with a touch of a virtual button in the Camera app. Check out the difference below.

General image quality is good here, though I did notice that the Xiaomi 14T Pro missed its exposure a couple of times. We’re only talking a handful of shots out of almost 100, but there was definitely the odd underexposed shot in Authentic mode, or the odd occasional overly bright area on Vibrant.

Subsequent shots would tend to correct this, but it’s reliability that counts with any point-and-shoot camera. The 14T Pro isn’t bad in this regard, but it isn’t the best either.

Night shots are decent, but betray the phone’s less-than-flagship status. I appreciate how they preserve the inky shade of darker scenes, but it undoubtedly struggles to pull out detail as well as pricier phones like the Pixel 9 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro – particularly in very dark situations.

14T Pro’s telephoto acquits itself very well for the money, maintaining decent detail levels even up to 5x through solid hybrid zoom techniques

The telephoto camera looks much the same as last year’s, which is to say it’s a pretty accomplished 50Mp 2x snapper. Compared side by side with the Pixel 9 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro, I noted hints of overexposure and relatively limited dynamic range in the Xiaomi 14T Pro, reflecting the fact that this isn’t quite the flagship phone it aspires to be.

Generally speaking, however, the 14T Pro’s telephoto acquits itself very well for the money, maintaining decent detail levels even up to 5x through solid hybrid zoom techniques.

Xiaomi doesn’t appear to have done much with the 14T Pro’s ultra-wide camera, at least from a hardware perspective. It’s another 12MP f/2.2 sensor that turns out perfectly OK results, though again they fall well short of the best in the business.

Xiaomi has upgraded the selfie camera on the 14T Pro, even though that was one of the more impressive sensors on the 13T Pro. Here you’re getting a 32MP front camera much like the Xiaomi 14, and it produces strong detail, fairly sharp subject separation, and decent skin tones.

In video terms the 14T Pro once again supports up to 8K at 30fps in Standard mode, which is an impressive spec in anything less than a top end phone. There’s also a MasterCinema mode that records in 10-bit Rec. 2020 with greater HDR, which tops out at 4K/30fps.

Xiaomi’s AI Image Editing suite lets you do things like gradually implement a clear sky using a slider, which works impressively well. You can also add various bokeh effects, again with a slider to control the severity of the effect.

The AI beautifying tricks are a little weird though. Using AI to bulk up your shoulders, fill out your chin, or ‘optimise skin radiance’ with an HD portrait felt somewhat odd to me, though I’m sure there’s an audience for it somewhere in the world.

In each case, these AI tools require an initial load-up time, with the ability to pop into the menu and install the AI Editor plug-in up front. These are extra steps that speak to a wider sense that AI hasn’t been fully integrated into Xiaomi’s set-up just yet. I’ll go into that more a little later.

Battery Life & Charging

• 5000mAh battery
• Much improved battery life
• 120W wired charging, though no charger in box
• 50W wireless charging most welcome

Last year’s Xiaomi 13T Pro didn’t have terrible battery life by any means, but it was definitely one of its weaker areas. Thankfully, it appears Xiaomi has taken steps to improve it this time around.

It packs the same 5000mAh battery, but whether it’s a more efficient chip or optimisation from Xiaomi – most likely it’s a combination of the two – I got much more encouraging results this time. In our usual PCMark Work 3.0 battery test, the 14T Pro lasted 12 hours and 32 minutes, which is more than four hours longer than the Xiaomi 13T Pro.

That figure sees it trail behind the Pixel 9 and the Nothing Phone (2), but beats the Galaxy S24 and draws level with the Xiaomi 14. Given that this was attained with the screen set to 144Hz, that’s not a bad result.

Xiaomi always provides some of the best charging speeds in any given area of the smartphone market, and the Xiaomi 14T Pro once again supports a blistering 120W wired standard

In regular day to day use, I was generally able to get through a 16 hour day of moderate usage, with around four hours of screen on time, and be left with around 50% left. Again, this is solid stuff.

Xiaomi always provides some of the best charging speeds in any given area of the smartphone market, and the Xiaomi 14T Pro once again supports a blistering 120W wired standard. The catch with this year’s model is that you don’t get a charger in the box.

This is done with the usual claims of reducing waste, which is undoubtedly true, but it also serves to pass a potentially significant cost onto the user. Add in the price of an official Xiaomi 120W charger at £39.99, and you could take it as representing a stealthy price bump over the 13T Pro.

Fortunately I had just such a 120W Xiaomi charger to hand. Having deactivated the charging restriction in the settings menu (aimed at preserving battery life), I was able to get the 14T Pro from empty to 65% in 15 minutes, and to 100% in around 26 minutes. That’s way faster than anything from Samsung, Apple, or Google.

Another massive addition that makes up for the lack of a charger in the box is that Xiaomi has finally implemented wireless charging to the mix. It’ll go up to 50W, too, if you have the appropriate £49.99 Xiaomi charger.

Software & AI

• HyperOS continues to frustrate
• Built on Android 14
• AI features up in the air

Since the release of the 13T Pro last year, Xiaomi has drawn a line under its divisive MIUI custom Android interface. The Xiaomi 14T Pro, like the Xiaomi 14 phones, runs on its new HyperOS.

While it feels sharper and snappier than ever here – comfortably living up to the Xiaomi 14T Pro’s capable processor and 144Hz display – it continues to frustrate. I’d love to say that HyperOS heralds in a completely new approach to mobile interface design on Xiaomi’s part, with a cleaner, more modern look and less bloatware. But it looks and feels much like MIUI before it.

It runs on top of Android 14, but you wouldn’t know it. Practically none of Google’s clean, stylish UI, as seen on the Pixel 9 and Pixel 8a, works its way through here. The notification and control centre is an overstuffed affair, and one that splits in two, iOS-style.

There’s no app tray (though this can be added) and the icons and menus range between charmless and flat out ugly. You can fundamentally alter the look of these with Xiaomi’s Themes store, but a lot of these are quite tacky-looking, while a lot of them also require payment.

It felt like HyperOS was constantly trying to push Xiaomi’s Wallpaper Carousel on me with its random, occasionally bizarre lock screen skins. After one night out, I found that I must have accidentally accepted one of these prompts, and found myself Googling how to deactivate it again.

Xiaomi’s Settings menu remains a warren of confusing placement and infuriating dead ends. I’ve never used a Settings search system more than Xiaomi’s, while my heavy use of the ‘Need other settings?’ suggestion at the bottom of these menus suggests that certain things just aren’t where you (or at least I) expect them to be.

Like every other manufacturer, Xiaomi is heralding AI with its latest flagship(ish) phone but it’s not exactly a rosy situation

Once again, there are loads of unwanted preinstalled apps here. Xiaomi has a bunch of its own core apps of course. But you also get third party efforts like Opera (making that three web browsers right off the bat), Booking.com, LinkedIn, Amazon Music (in addition to YouTube Music), WPS Office, and AliExpress. It’s all just a bit much to contend with from a fresh install.

Like every other manufacturer, Xiaomi is heralding AI with its latest flagship(ish) phone but it’s not exactly a rosy situation. Much of that is Google’s work, with Gemini preinstalled as the default assistant app, like on the Pixel 9. Google’s Circle to Search will apparently be made available on the phone from 6 October.

Xiaomi also mentioned a range of its own AI tools in its press materials, such as AI Interpreter, AI Notes, AI Recorder, and AI Subtitles. However, Xiaomi has since told me that the mobile version of AI Interpreter is currently unavailable, while AI Interpreter and other AI features will be available via an update on the day of the announcement. So, too late for me to test.

Only AI Subtitles was actually available to me ahead of launch,  and even then only in apparent beta form. Xiaomi is promising an OTA update at some undetermined point in the future.

Having negotiated the glitchy process of getting AI Subtitles working, it essentially reads, translates and subtitles currently playing audio and videos, both via a floating window on top of the content and an underlying app. It largely works as advertised, though the splurge of translated text from a French language video proved jerky and impossible to follow in real time, with sentences expanding and contracting in a manner that made my eyes go funny.

Having finished the video, Xiaomi’s AI smart summary proved more legible, giving me the main talking points from multiple contributors. However, its list of ‘Action items’ felt completely off the mark, forcing a productivity angle where there was none. It’s worth reiterating that this is not finished software right now, and Xiaomi has not placed a date on when the finished version will be ready.

Price & Availability

The Xiaomi 14T Pro starts at £649/€649 for 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, just like the Xiaomi 13T Pro before it. My review model is the 12GB/1TB option which I don’t have a figure for at the time of writing.

You’ll be able to buy it from the official Xiaomi Mi store as well as, presumably, retailers like Amazon. As usual, it won’t be officially available in the USA.

It’s a very competitive price for a phone that performs as well as the Xiaomi 14T Pro, and there’s really nothing else on the market quite this impressive from a hardware perspective in late 2024.

With Google’s price bump, the Pixel 9 is now £150 more expensive. The Nothing Phone (2) is perhaps the closest competitor with its fractionally cheaper £629 RRP, but focuses on snazzy design and sharp software over the 14T Pro’s raw spec assault.

Should you buy the Xiaomi 14T Pro?

With the Xiaomi 14T Pro, Xiaomi has provided a very well specced almost-flagship phone with competitive performance and an excellent 144Hz OLED display. Its camera set-up, while not quite flagship standard, is capable of pretty great things, while the design makes up for a lack of frills with solid build quality and a decent bill of materials.

There have been notable improvements over the Xiaomi 13T Pro too, most obviously in the provision of wireless charging – 50W no less -, a more practical finish, and far more reliable battery life.

It’s not quite a home run, however. HyperOS continues to cause friction, while Xiaomi’s AI implementation seems somewhat half-baked at the time of writing. Meanwhile, the omission of a charger in the box is far from unusual, but it does potentially represent a stealthy price bump if you don’t already have one of Xiaomi’s speedy 120W bricks.

Once again, Xiaomi’s hardware is impeccable and its value proposition compelling, but it still won’t be the ideal phone for everyone.

Specs

• Android 14
• 6.67in, 1220 x 2712, OLED, 144Hz, flat display
• In-display fingerprint sensor
• Mediatek Dimensity 9300+
• 12/16GB RAM
• 256GB/512GB/1TB storage
• 50Mp, f/1.7 main camera
• 12Mp, f/2.2 ultra-wide camera
• 50Mp, f/1.9 telephoto camera
• Up to 8K @ 30fps rear video
• 32Mp front-facing camera
• Stereo speakers
• Dual-SIM
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6/7
• Bluetooth 5.4
• 5000mAh battery
• 120W charging
• 160.4 x 75.1 x 8.4mm
• 209g
• Launch colours: Titanium Black, Titanium Grey, Titanium Blue