Xiaomi's Redmi Note series is one of its most popular and well-selling smartphones over the years. The new Redmi 14 series also has three models with the regular Redmi Note 14 5G being the most affordable one. Priced at Rs. 19,999 for the base variant, the phone is vying for quite a competitive price segment; so let us try and see how well it fares.
The phone has a plastic back with slightly curved sides that make it a little more comfortable to hold and carry around. It doesn't feel cheap and has a slightly glossy and glimmer-y look and feel. The back also houses the triple camera system on an elevated rectangular cut-out near the top left corner while the Redmi branding sits near the bottom.
The front has a 6.67-inch (20:9 aspect ratio) display with a Corning Gorilla Glass 5 (and the back, too). You get slim but unsymmetrical bezels (the one on the chin is thicker than others). The right side locates the power/lock key and volume buttons, while the left side is left plain. The bottom carries the hybrid dual SIM card and microSD card tray, USB type C port, primary mic, and one outlet for loudspeakers. On the top, it has 3.5mm audio jack, a second outlet for loudspeakers, an infrared port and a secondary mic. The phone weighs a little under 190 grams and is dust and water-resistant, and is available in three colour options—Titan Black, Mystique White and Phantom Purple.
A 6.67-inch full HD+ (240x1080) AMOLED display with support for up to 120Hz refresh rates and HDR10+ is probably the best part about this smartphone. The display is bright enough to be used outdoors and has vibrant colours. The phone offers decent details for watching full HD videos on YouTube and isn't too bad for watching HDR content considering the price tag.
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On the back, you have a triple camera system—a 50MP (f/1.5) main camera (with OIS and EIS), an 8MP (f/2.2) ultra-wide camera, and a 2MP macro camera. The phone is decent at taking detailed shots in good lighting conditions and has a snappy camera. Its low-light performance has improved from its predecessor. For document scanning and 1080p videos, it does a fine job. The front-facing 20MP (f/2.2) camera takes punchy selfies and is quick to take shots, too.
The device is equipped with MediaTek Dimensity 7025 (up to 2.6Ghz octa-core processor and IMG BXM-8-256 GPU) with 8GB LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB or 256GB UFS2.2 internal storage. It runs on Xiaomi's HyperOS 1.0.4 based on Android 14 with the November security patch. The phone can handle day-to-day tasks, but I wouldn't say it is the smoothest phone in this price range or the one with satisfactory software experience. There are ads when you open the file manager and themes app, and you also have to disable push notifications from a number of pre-installed apps, if not uninstalled. You can expect to play a game like Monument Valley smoothly and something like BGMI at around 30FPS or so with some frame drops every now and then. Xiaomi promises two years of OS updates and four years of security patches for the device.
The phone's loudspeakers are loud and have sufficient depth for gaming and video playback. 5G performance is decent for the price tag and WiFi and GPS performance didn't show any glitches during my usage.
Powered by a 5,110 mAh battery unit, the phone rarely lasted me less than a day on full charge. You get a 45watts fast charger (along with a silicon case) in the box that can charge it from one per cent to full in an hour without any heating issues.
All in all, the Redmi Note 14 5G isn't quite a homerun when it comes to sheer performance and camera quality from my experience. It has a really nice display and good battery life, but it is not for gaming, and neither it has the smoothest software experience for those who don't want to tinker around much with their phones out of the box.
