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Xiaomi and Leica’s partnership has entered its third year of collaboration. The all-new Xiaomi 14 is the second phone to be launched in India under this partnership after the Xiaomi 13 Pro. For those unaware, the partnership began in 2022 with the co-development and launch of the Xiaomi 12S Ultra for the premium smartphone segment as the first product of the long-term partnership. But that never made it to India. The 13 Pro was Xiaomi’s first product to arrive in India and it checked all the boxes for an excellent premium camera phone. However, the all-new Xiaomi 14 proves that there’s room for more and how. As previously announced by the company, the Xiaomi 14 is launching in India on March 7, but Gadgets 360 had already got our hands on the all-new phone for almost a week and here are our first impressions.
Xiaomi 14: What’s New?
If you’re thinking that the new Xiaomi 14 looks similar to the Xiaomi 13 Pro, then yes and no! Yes, for the Xiaomi x Leica tuned cameras on the phones, but no from a design perspective. The Xiaomi 14 looks like a handset that has been designed from scratch and has the most practical aesthetics that we have seen on a Xiaomi device in India so far. The attention to detail is something that Xiaomi has got right this time around.
The 6.36-inch display sits perfectly between a compact phone with a 6.1-inch display and one with a 6.7-inch display. At 193 grams, the Xiaomi 14 is one of the perfect one-handed phones with an excellent weight distribution, especially compared to its predecessor, the Xiaomi 13 Pro, which weighed 229 grams. At 8.2mm thick, it is thinner than the iPhone 15 Pro and of course the Xiaomi 13 Pro. The design aspects are good and the flat edges of the Xiaomi 14 will steadily grow on you. There are three color choices: white, jade green and black (which we received for this review).
From our time with the Xiaomi 14 and with the teams at Xiaomi and Leica, the effort seems clear: build a smartphone that leverages the legendary camera brand’s expertise and delivers one of the best camera experiences for consumers. We’ll be delving into the overall device in our in-depth review. Stay tuned to Gadgets 360.
Xiaomi 14 is also a special device when it comes to software. It is the company’s first device to feature HyperOS out-of-the-box. We will discuss it extensively in our review around the time of its launch in India.
It features a 120Hz AMOLED display with a screen resolution of 1200×2670 pixels and a pixel density of 460PPI. The display has a peak brightness of 3000 nits and supports Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10, and TUV Rheinland Low Blue Light certification. The display on the Xiaomi 14 is stunning and the ultra-narrow bezel around the screen provides an immersive viewing experience. It is bright and the color reproduction is perfect. We had a lot of fun using the Xiaomi 14, it became our favorite multimedia device for the same reasons. The Xiaomi 14 comes with stereo speakers, supports Dolby Atmos, and a 4-mic array. We will dive deeper into the details of the display in our review.
The Xiaomi 14 is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform and will come with a single 12GB RAM + 512GB storage configuration. Interestingly, Xiaomi has opted for the highest RAM and storage configuration for the Xiaomi 14 considering this is a photography-focused phone. You get LPDDR5X and UFS 4.0 storage which is a nice addition considering this is a premium device. During our time with the Xiaomi 14, it was snappy and handled multitasking, gaming, and more without any hassle. We’ll talk more about its performance further 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 fully charge (0-100 percent) in 31 minutes, according to the company. Battery performance seemed decent during our time with the Xiaomi 14. We can talk in depth about the battery experience in our review . The phone offers Wi-Fi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 5.4, 5G, and dual-SIM for connectivity.
Xiaomi 14: What’s new in terms of cameras
The cameras are probably the most important factor for the Xiaomi 14. There are three 50-megapixel sensors on the device – wide-angle, telephoto, and ultra-wide. The primary one uses a Light Fusion 900 image sensor, which comes with an f/1.6 aperture and supports various features such as Ultra Night, Movie mode, and 8K video recording. The telephoto gets the 75mm f/2.0 Leica floating camera design while the ultra-wide gets a 115-degree field of view and an f/2.2 aperture. The phone offers two photography styles – Leica Authentic and Leica Vibrant. For selfies, there’s a 32-megapixel front-facing camera. We can’t say much about the cameras due to the embargo, so we’ll show you some camera samples and get an idea.
Xiaomi 14 camera sample
From the first feel, the device delivers in daylight and sets a benchmark for other phones in this price range. You can always play with the Leica-tuned portrait functions. We will go into the camera performance in detail in our review.
Xiaomi 14: First Thoughts
From what we’ve been able to experience in about a week, we think Xiaomi has a winner with the 14 and it should make waves in the market for all the right reasons. The brand new compact form factor is already growing in popularity and seems very practical for everyday use. Stay tuned for our in-depth review to know if the Xiaomi 14 is the camera phone to buy this year for around Rs. 75,000. You could also get a better deal if you take advantage of bank offers.
