Xiaomi 14 First impressions | Widgets 360

The partnership of Xiaomi and Leica has entered its third year of cooperation. The all-new Xiaomi 14 is the only second phone in India launched under this partnership after the Xiaomi 13 Pro. For those who don’t know, the partnership started in 2022 with the joint development and launch of the Xiaomi 12S Ultra for the premium smartphone segment as the first long-term partnership product. But this never reached India. The 13 Pro was the first product from the house of Xiaomi to make it to India and it ticked all the boxes for an excellent premium camera phone. However, the all-new Xiaomi 14 proves that there is room for more and how. As already announced by the company, the Xiaomi 14 launched in India on March 7, but Gadgets 360 got our hands on the all-new phone almost a week ago, and here are our first impressions.

Xiaomi 14: What’s new

If you think that the new Xiaomi 14 is similar to the Xiaomi 13 Pro, then yes and no! Yes, for the Xiaomi x Leica tuned cameras on the phones, but not in terms of design. The Xiaomi 14 looks like a phone designed from scratch and has the most practical aesthetic we’ve seen on a Xiaomi device in India yet. Attention to detail is something that Xiaomi nailed this time.

The 6.36-inch screen sits perfectly between a compact phone with a 6.1-inch screen and one with a 6.7-inch display. At 193 grams, the Xiaomi 14 is one of the perfect one-handed phones with excellent weight distribution, especially compared to its predecessor, the Xiaomi 13 Pro, which weighed 229 grams. At 8.2mm thick, it’s thinner than the iPhone 15 Pro and, of course, the Xiaomi 13 Pro. The design aspects are up to par and the flat edges of the Xiaomi 14 will constantly appeal to you. It comes in three color options – white, jade green and black (which we picked up for this review).

During the time we spent with the Xiaomi 14 and in conversations with the Xiaomi and Leica teams, the effort seems clear: to create a smartphone that uses the brand’s legendary camera expertise and provides one of the best camera experiences for users. We’ll talk about the overall device in detail in our in-depth review. Stay tuned for Gadgets 360.

The Xiaomi 14 is also a special device when it comes to software. It’s the company’s first device with HyperOS out of the box. We will discuss it in depth in our India launch review.

It features a 120Hz AMOLED display with 1200×2670 pixels screen resolution and 460PPI pixel density. The display has a peak brightness of 3000 nits and supports Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10 and TUV Rheinland Low Blue Light certification. The Xiaomi 14’s display is stunning, and the ultra-thin bezel around the display offers an immersive viewing experience. It’s bright and the color reproduction is up to par. We had a great time with the Xiaomi 14, which has become our favorite multimedia device for the same reasons. The Xiaomi 14 comes with stereo speakers, supports Dolby Atmos and a 4-microphone array. We’ll dive deep into the specifics of the display in our review.

The Xiaomi 14 is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile platform and will be available in a 12GB RAM + 512GB storage variant. Interestingly, Xiaomi opted for the highest RAM and storage configuration for the Xiaomi 14 as it is a photography-focused phone. You get LPDDR5X and UFS 4.0 storage, which is a nice addition considering this is a premium device. In our time with the Xiaomi 14, it was fast and could handle multitasking, gaming and more without breaking a sweat. We’ll talk more about performance in our review.

Compared to the Xiaomi 13 Pro (4820mAh), the Xiaomi 14 has a smaller 4610mAh battery and comes with 90W HyperCharge. It also supports 50W wireless HyperCharge and can be fully charged (0-100 percent) in 31 minutes, according to the company. Battery performance seemed decent in our time with the Xiaomi 14. We can talk more about the battery experience in our review. The phone offers Wi-Fi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 5.4, 5G and dual SIM connectivity.

Xiaomi 14: What’s new in cameras

Moving on to the cameras is perhaps the most important factor for the Xiaomi 14. The device has three 50-megapixel sensors – wide, telephoto and ultra-wide. The main one uses Light Fusion 900 image sensor which comes with f/1.6 aperture and supports various features like Ultra Night, Movie mode and 8K video recording. The telephoto lens gets a 75mm f/2.0 Leica floating camera design, and the ultrawide gets a 115-degree field of view and f/2.2 aperture. The phone offers two photography styles – Leica Authentic and Leica Vibrant. For selfies, there is a 32-megapixel front-facing camera. We can’t talk much about the cameras due to the embargo, so we’ll let you see some camera samples and get an idea.

Xiaomi 14 sample camera

From the initial feel, the device performs well in daylight and sets a benchmark for other phones in this price category. You can always play around with the portrait functions set by Leica. We’ll talk more about camera performance in our review.

Xiaomi 14: Initial thoughts

From what we’ve been able to experience in a week or so, we think Xiaomi has a winner with the 14 and should be creating buzz in the market for all the right reasons. The all-new compact form factor is already growing and looks very practical for everyday use. Stay tuned for our in-depth review to find out if the Xiaomi 14 is the camera phone to buy this year at around Rs. 75,000. You can also get a better deal if you use bank offers.