Redmi Note 14 Pro+ 5G Review – Durable, Value-Centric Daily Driver

Unboxing the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ 5G

Kicking off our Redmi Note 14 Pro+ 5G review with the unboxing, there’s quite a bit to see on the packaging. You get a magnified illustration of the device, with a particular focus on the rear cameras and color, along with the model name, main camera spec, charging speed, and the Xiaomi logo taking a small bit of space on the top-right corner. The box itself is clad in white. Inside it, we found the following items:

• USB-C cable
• 120W Xiaomi HyperCharge charger
• Documentation
• SIM ejector tool
• Protective case
• The Redmi Note 14 Pro+ 5G smartphone itself

Specifications

SoC	Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 (4nm) 1 x 2.5 GHz Cortex-A720 + 3 x 2.4 GHz Cortex-A720 + 4 x 1.8 GHz Cortex-A520 Adreno 710 GPU @ 940 MHz
Memory	12GB LPDDR4X
Storage	256GB / 512GB UFS 2.2
Display	6.67” 20:9 1.5K (2712 x 122) 120Hz CrystalRes AMOLED, 68.7 billion colors, 446 ppi, 5 million:1 contrast ratio 480Hz touch sampling rate 1920Hz PWM dimming 3,000 nits peak brightness HDR10+, Dolby Vision Gorilla Glass Victus 2
Camera	200MP f/1.65 wide angle AI camera, PDAF, OIS, 7P lens 8MP f/2.2 120˚ ultrawide angle camera 2MP f/2.4 macro camera Up to 4K 30FPS video recording, gyro-EIS, OIS
Selfie camera	20MP f/2.2 wide angle camera Up to Full HD 60FPS video recording
Connectivity	802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6E, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct Bluetooth 5.4 (supports A2DP, LHDC, and LE) USB-C 2.0 with OTG support NFC GPS, GALILEO, GLONASS, QZSS, BDS (B1I+B1c)
Battery	5110mAh 120W Xiaomi HyperCharge fast charging
Dimensions	162.53 x 74.67 x 8.75 mm
Weight	210g
OS	Xiaomi HyperOS 2 based on Android 15
Color	Midnight Black, Frost Blue, Lavender Purple
Ingress Protection	IP68

Performance

Starting off our benchmark suite with Antutu v10, the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ 5G performed decently enough for what it offers. After all, it’s powered by the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, an SoC that’s typically reserved for midrange devices with an emphasis on value. It’s far off from current generation flagships but it’s for roughly a quarter of its price, you can’t complain since it’s still decent.

Moving on to Geekbench 6, the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ 5G performed pretty much on par with what we’d expect from it. It’s not as good as the standard Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chip but that shouldn’t be a surprise given the “s” moniker. CPU performance still packs a punch for an affordable smartphone, especially when you consider that it’s not far off from a 2023 flagship chip.

In 3DMark, we can see the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ 5G’s biggest weakness; GPU performance. It scored rather low in 3DMark’s Wild Life Extreme and Steel Nomad Light benchmarks, while Solar Bay is simply unsupported by the device. This is by no means an indication that you can’t play games on it, just that you will need to stick to lower graphics settings or mobile games that aren’t resource-intensive.

GPUScore Sacred Path doesn’t seem to work on this smartphone so we will move on to our last benchmark.

Lastly on PCMark’s Work 3.0 benchmark, the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ 5G actually performed a little better than I expected. Not only did it perform at the same level as upper midrange smartphones, it came very close to the performance levels of a 2023 flagship device. This makes it a pretty solid daily driver for those looking for a smartphone that won’t break the bank.

For those of you who are wondering about battery life, the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ 5G lasted 11 hours and 33 minutes (693 minutes) in PCMark’s Work 3.0 endurance test, which is a pretty solid figure. You can easily last a full day without charging, with the possibility of lasting a day and a half depending on your use case.

If that’s not enough for you, it charges quite fast thanks to the included 120W Xiaomi HyperCharge charger. Based on our charging test starting from 2% battery life, this is how long it took to fully charge it:

• 15 minutes = 78% battery life
• 23 minutes = 100% battery life

If you want even better value, the Xiaomi 14T Pro won our Best Value Smartphone of 2024 award. Check out its review by clicking right here.

Camera

As we had a limited time with the device, we couldn’t do an extensive shootout to test the camera but we have seen enough to get a good idea of what it’s capable of. The daylight and well-lit shots tend to result in overexposed pictures, with details being on the softer side. To be precise, it feels like the autofocus is just a notch away from being in full focus more often than not. It’s not bad, just decent at best. I’m surprised how well low light shots turned out however as details are crisp and noise is significantly less than most smartphones within the same price range.

Ultrawide works almost as well as the main camera, albeit with even softer details across the board while the selfie camera is pretty decent. The macro camera is the one thing we didn’t really manage to try out properly as our brief usage of it resulted in terrible pictures, and I’m sure we could do better with it if we had a bit more preparation.

The Good

There are a number of good reasons to consider the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ 5G. For starters, you get a durable yet attractive smartphone in an affordable package. It has IP68 dust and water resistance, Gorilla Glass Victus 2 for the display, and high-strength aluminum composite chassis which is said to improve rigidity by 10% over its predecessor. It’s more than enough to handle your day-to-day scenarios even if you’re a clumsy person.

The rear itself has a nice two-pattern look, giving it a look that is akin to flagships from two years ago. In case you’re wondering, it has Gorilla Glass 7i for its rear, though some variants do have eco leather instead, which is a nicely added touch. The large camera housing certainly makes it look more capable, and the fact that it doesn’t pick up fingerprint smudges easily is always a major plus point for me.

Arguably the biggest factor of its attractive design is its display. It’s a 6.67-inch 1.5K CrystalRes AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate, up to 480Hz touch sampling rate, and 1,920Hz PWM dimming. The brightness can get pretty high too with peak brightness of 3,000 nits. The icing on the cake is that it supports HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. It’s slightly curved, giving it a premium look and feel without making it hard to hold, but I’ll leave this up to you whether it’s a good or bad thing since there are people who prefer a flat screen.

Lastly, I’m quite enjoying this iteration of HyperOS. Sure, there’s a focus on AI features along with the inclusion of Google Gemini. It feels like the animations and transitions have become smoother, and the way the UI is laid out seems cleaner , even when compared to the Pixel 9. Sure, it still comes with some level of bloatware but it’s easy to remove a lot of it if it bothers you. I genuinely expected that I would experience at least a little bit of lagginess with the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 but it’s been a surprisingly smooth affair throughout.

The Bad

Of course, the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ 5G has its share of drawbacks. For starters, while the overall performance package is acceptable given its price point, the storage is definitely the one thing limiting its potential as it’s only UFS 2.2. While UFS 4.0 might be too much to ask for without a significant price increment, UFS 3.1 might be reasonable still. To give you an idea, UFS 3.1 has sequential read and write speeds of up to 2,900 Mbps / 700 Mbps while UFS 2.2 is at speeds of 550 Mbps / 500 Mbps.

Lastly, the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ 5G doesn’t have wireless charging support. It’s a minor drawback and I’m certain that most people use cables to charge anyway but if you’re the kind of person who wants maximum convenience in as many aspects as possible even if it’s on the slower side, then this might be a dealbreaker for you. For what it’s worth, this device can charge insanely fast so you don’t have to spend much time being plugged to a wall.

Redmi Note 14 Pro+ 5G Verdict

The Redmi Note 14 Pro+ 5G is an attractive smartphone given the overall package and its affordable price of RM1,699 for the 256GB variant and RM1,899 for the 512GB variant. It’s nowhere close to a flagship performance but if you’re looking for a fuss-free, reliable daily driver that might break the floor before it breaks the bank, then this might be the ideal choice. If you’re geared more towards mobile gaming, then the POCO X7 series might be the better choice, but that will be a story for another day.

At the end of our Redmi Note 14 Pro+ 5G review, I award this smartphone with our Silver Pokdeward.

Big thanks to Xiaomi Malaysia for sending us this smartphone for the purpose of this review.