Today at Mobile World Congress, Xiaomi is announcing its international flagship phone lineup for the year: the Xiaomi 14 and Xiaomi 14 Ultra.
A year ago I reviewed the Xiaomi 13 Pro, a very good phone that ended up somewhat in the shadow of the even better Xiaomi 13 Ultra, which was ultimately my favourite phone of the year. This year, there's no Xiaomi 14 Pro outside China, making the distinction between the global models much more apparent.
I'm looking forward to reviewing the 14 Ultra, but that'll have to wait; I’ve only spent a couple of minutes with it at a pre-briefing event. I have been using the Xiaomi 14 for the past couple of weeks, however, and it's a great little phone in its own right.
The Xiaomi 14 has a boxy, flat-sided design that debuted on last year's non-Pro Xiaomi 13. I never personally used that phone, so the design here is new to me, and it turns out I'm a fan. The way the back-panel glass curves very slightly right at the edges makes for a comfortable, grippy feel without any sharp sides digging into your palm.
I've been using the Jade Green variant of the Xiaomi 14; it also comes in black or white. The green is a subtle finish that can almost look grey in muted lighting conditions but turns much more striking outdoors. It does get covered in fingerprints pretty quickly, however.
At 71.5mm wide, the Xiaomi 14 is less than a millimetre wider than the iPhone 15 Pro. It's more than half a centimetre taller, though, owing to its larger 6.36" OLED display with a 20:9 aspect ratio. Both panels have flat edges and similarly even bezels, so the Xiaomi 14 really does feel like a slightly taller iPhone 15 Pro in use.
I'm not sure it'll satisfy the vocal minority of people still calling for even smaller screens. As high-end Android phones go, though, I think the Xiaomi 14 is extremely manageable in size, and I much prefer its design to the 13 Pro's.
It's also hard to fault the display panel itself. The resolution is 2670 x 1200, which is basically an exact match for the iPhone in terms of pixel density. Peak brightness can reach 3,000 nits, though Xiaomi claims 1,000 under typical conditions. The screen supports Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG; photos and videos captured on the device are displayed in HDR.
The rest of the specs are flagship-class, as usual. There's a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, a 4,610mAh battery, and fast charging at 90W over a cable or 50W wirelessly. The model I've been using has 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, which is the maximum available.
Even though this phone is on the smaller side, battery life has been pretty strong in my testing, getting me through days of heavy photography no problem. With the included 90W charger, you can get a full charge from 0 to 100% in just over half an hour. It takes 46 minutes with a compatible 50W wireless charger, though you'll have to find an official Xiaomi model for yourself.
The Xiaomi 14 ships with HyperOS, Xiaomi’s overhauled take on Android 14. I’ve found it to be snappy and performant, though the general style and user interface lifts a lot from iOS on a surface level and is unlikely to change anyone’s mind if they didn’t like MIUI before. Much of Xiaomi’s claims about the OS relate to how it works under the hood and remains stable over time — addressing performance degradation in the file system, for example — so we’ll see how that shakes out.
The real spec sheet intrigue, of course, is found in the camera system. Xiaomi has made some fascinating choices with the cameras on this year's lineup.
Last year Xiaomi went big on 1" sensors, using them on both the 13 Pro and the 13 Ultra's main cameras. This year, it's only on the 14 Ultra. That's ostensibly a downgrade for the China-only 14 Pro, though it does have an ambitious f/1.4-f4 variable aperture lens that might make up for the smaller 50-megapixel 1/1.31" sensor. The 14 Ultra’s big hardware upgrade is adding a variable aperture to a 1” LYT-900 sensor.
As for the Xiaomi 14, it pairs a f/1.6 aperture lens with the same 1/1.31" sensor, which Xiaomi calls the Light Fusion 900. That's still a big upgrade over last year's Xiaomi 13, which was at f/1.8 and 1/1.49". The rest of the camera system is rounded out by 50-megapixel ultrawide and 3.2x “floating” telephoto cameras that as far as I can tell are the same as on the 13 Pro.
The specs are only half the story, of course. The Xiaomi 13 Ultra was my favourite phone last year in large part because of its unique approach to image processing that was developed in partnership with Leica. More than any phone I'd ever used, the 13 Ultra put out photos that felt like they came from a real camera, only without the need to spend hours editing them in Lightroom.
The good news is that the Xiaomi 14 absolutely matches the 13 Ultra in processing quality, if not raw hardware ability. I'm sure I'll end up preferring the 14 Ultra down the line, but this is a fantastic camera by itself.
In daylight, the Xiaomi 14’s Leica Authentic setting keeps up the same muted, contrasty rendering of its predecessors. (As always, I haven’t edited these images at all.) It’s not afraid to blow out highlights or render shadows as shadows, and the slight vignette draws your attention to the colours of the subject.
The depth of field isn’t quite as shallow as you’d get with a 1” sensor, but as we’ll see, the combination of the f/1.6 aperture and Light Fusion 900 sensor still delivers impressive results as the light starts to fade.
In mixed or dim lighting, the Xiaomi 14 does a great job of handling colours and contrast without washing the whole image out. Highlights are bright and shadows are dark where they ought to be, and the camera retains its distinctive colour profile.
Look at how the warm store lighting is rendered here without compromising the white balance of the frame overall. The green light and the barber pole at the crossing are easily discernible, but justifiably over-exposed because they’re the brightest elements in the scene. Most of the building is doused in shadow, but you can still make out details like the mesh on the scaffolding and the roof above the balcony.
This is exactly what I want a photo like this to look like. Years ago, I would have spent a long time editing DSLR or mirrorless RAW files to get this kind of result. Other phones are capable of capturing and processing this kind of scene, but they tend to focus on exposing as much detail as possible at the expense of aesthetics. Like the 13 Ultra, the Xiaomi 14 takes photos that look like actual photos.
The Xiaomi 14 holds up well in much lower light, too. This image does look slightly brighter than it did to my eyes at the time, but it isn’t over-exposed. The lit-up trees are appropriately clipped without being totally blown out, and the shore is as dark as it ought to be while preserving detail in the stones.
The f/2.2 ultrawide camera seems to be the same as in the Xiaomi 13 Pro. The lens clearly isn’t quite as sharp as the main camera’s, but the colour processing is no different.
Here’s a comparison between the main camera (on the left) and the ultrawide. I stood closer to the car for the ultrawide shot to compare the perspectives and image quality more directly.
Like the ultrawide, the 3.2x telephoto gives you the same colour rendering as the main camera at the expense of a little sharpness. I wouldn’t want to use it much beyond its native 75mm-equivalent focal length. It does, however, have a very close minimal focal distance of 10cm, making it effective as a macro lens or for extreme close-up portraits.
The last thing I’ll say about the Xiaomi 14 is subjective, but it might be the most important. It’s the sense that, like the 13 Ultra, it really does just feel like a camera. The more minimalist industrial design helps, but it’s more about the sense that you can use it to make actual photos on the spot.
Its results won’t necessarily be for everyone. I would rather use the Xiaomi 14 as a camera than almost any phone on the market, though, as well as the vast majority of compact cameras. Even ones with Leica’s badge on them.
The Xiaomi 14 is a phone, too, of course, and it isn’t bad at that either. The design, display, and performance are all top-tier; this is an extremely competitive device for its size and price class.
But Xiaomi’s true competitive advantage is its unique approach to smartphone cameras. The Leica partnership is genuinely paying off, and the Xiaomi 14 delivers similarly impressive results to its predecessors in a smaller, cheaper package.