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A perfectly sized smartphone with plenty to offer
The Xiaomi 14 was one of the two smartphones that the company announced at MWC 2024. This phone launched way back in October last year, but in China. This was the announcement of its global variant. It launched alongside its larger sibling, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, though it holds its own in terms of power and general appearance. The Xiaomi 14 is a completely different beast compared to the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, though it does have a number of its own advantages. We decided to set aside one of our MWC 2024 awards for the Xiaomi 14 for good reason. It truly is an appealing product.
The ideal size for a smartphone?
The Xiaomi 14 does look considerably different compared to the ‘Ultra’ model. First and foremost, it’s smaller, but not small. It has a 6.36-inch display, but on top of that, you’re getting very thin bezels. Those bezels are only 1.71mm thick, and they’re all the same thickness. In other words, the Xiaomi 14 has uniform bezels. That makes for a rather compact smartphone that’s only 152.8mm tall, and 71.5mm wide, while being 8.2mm thick. The Xiaomi 14 also weighs well below 200 grams. All that makes it a great smartphone for many people. It’s not a brick that feels uncomfortable to use and still has a rather spacious display for anything you need. It also feels rather nice to use with one hand.
This smartphone actually looks great in general. The global variant of the phone comes in three colors, and all of them have glass on the back. The Jade Green looked particularly appealing to us, but the White model also looks very nice, with that black camera island. If you prefer ultimate minimalism, there’s also the black version. The sides are flat, but with chamfered edges, and the whole phone simply feels nice to hold and use. Xiaomi made all the right moves here, in terms of design.
Flagship-level internals, and Leica-backed cameras
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is included here, Qualcomm’s most powerful process. Xiaomi also didn’t skimp out on RAM and storage, as both LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 flash storage are used here. The display is of an LTPO OLED variety, and it gets immensely bright. It’s vivid and has great viewing angles, not to mention really good protection on top of it. Xiaomi also increased the battery size compared to last year’s model. Yes, fast charging is also included, and that goes for both wired and wireless charging. 90W wired, and 50W wireless charging are at your disposal, along with a 90W charger which sits in the box.
What about the cameras? Well, Xiaomi opted for a trio of 50MP shooters on the back. The main one is particularly impressive with an f/1.6 aperture, 1.2um pixel size, and OIS support. The other two look good too. The telephoto one offers a 3.2x optical zoom, and the ultrawide one has a 115-degree FoV. Leica’s lenses are used on top of the sensors to complete the package. Also, Leica touches are used here for image processing too, and the camera UI. The Xiaomi 14 is a great package overall.