So this is one of the first reviews, but not the last for this year. But with the new year and times ahead, the Redmi Note 7 was dying, and it was time to find its replacement. There was the Note 13 Pro 5g, but it was only temporary; it turns out due to a last-minute thing. So, for this, it was time to think, and with deals in November and December, which for me makes sense for betting on this. Making the Note 14 Pro Plus 5G a nice price of the £220s mark when purchasing with those Mi Points and coupons. The Specs seem pretty powerful.
Eventually, the Redmi Note 7 has to fail or shatter from a cattle grid,d and then it was time to plan out the review.
The Packaging:
In the typical Xiaomi Fashion, the box has a minimalistic look to it. With the white box, black text and only logos on the sides, it's got that feel to it of trying not to make it look over the top and make it clear the Brand, the model, and the OS used.
The front of the Box
The bottom of the Box
The Right side of the box
The Top of the box
The left side of the box with HyperOS now advertised.
The small print on the back of the box
Which then leads to the nice side of the branded Mi tape on the left and right sides of it; for me, it slices it or burns it off to peel easier for them to open the box up. The inside is nice with the phone in its paper seal right in front of us, then behind it or beneath it, rather, is the key is that:
Charging Cable up to 100W
Sim Ejector
Silicone grey protective back cover case
The tiny user fold-out guide
The Safety and Warranty Paperwork
Each of those can help with those parts to show what this Phone has to offer. The ocean blue is a lovely touch, which, in the case, is not transparent, so that does hide it, but at the same time, a phone with a case is actually one of the best features some of the mid-range provide since alot have to buy the case on top with Apple and Samsung, so this is a good part.
The Phone inside the box
The phone and the outer box next to each other
Part of the Paperwork
More of the other side of the Paperwork
The Front of the safety
Inside of the safety manual
The other side of the safety manual
Now, when it comes to the phone itself, the ocean blue makes it feel like a nice colour relief that does not make it feel like it's going to burn in the sun (more on that later). But this has
The Mic hole at the bottom and the top,
IR Sensor near the camera
3 Camera Lenses and one LED for Torch
SIM tray at the bottom
No 3.5mm jack
The front of the Phone
The Back of the phone
Which then the Cable and Case have thay bold colour; grey is unsure why they chose that, but the White cable is traditional,l and those cables are powerful enough to charge a MacBook Pro M1 from a Powerbank i kid you not. But the case was fine in its silicone for the Grab Tab to be added on
The 100W Charging Cable
A Better look at the orange connectors
The inside of the Protective Case
The back of the protective Case
Adding a Grab Tab to the back of the case
Then it was time to charge up and test. Since I did try to reflash the firmware, but that requires the bootloader to unlock, which really, of course, can't be, I realised this was stuck on Android 14 with HyperOS 1. But it was time to set up anyway.
The Setup
This was where it was going to be not as fun as I thought; since, luckily,y I was filming in the shop, it was still to make sure I got it right. With the phone turned on, the Mi Logo for the bootloader was still there, but this time HyperOS was glimmering on the screen as it was booting up for the first time.
Setting up the Note 14 Pro + 5G with the Redmi Note 7 next to it
The Start of the Transfer
So it was going through the steps; the text was bright and clear, the responsiveness was good, and it was only a setback that it used wireless for transferring even with a USB 4 cable plugged in between the two. Like both are usb 2 Type C Ports.
The transfer is going over slowly, but wirelessly.
It eventually took its time because of the wireless transfer across. But then it was setting up all of the Apps to go with it, which some used the codes to transfer, and some will be re-registering them to make sure it works. After this, it was then time to get the screen protector on, which will be affecting the fingerprint for the in screen sensore which is one of the downsides with the extra protection. There is one included, and it fitted on, but it's more a film than an acrylic 19H Glass.
The Screen and the Screen Protector
How it is being prepared to be fitted
The screen protector is fitted and turned on.
Initially, it was coming to finally do some of the testing to then see how this Phone was really going to go. But there are always more steps first.
Setting up:
So this was the fun part of the complexity of any phone. The first part of this was to connect the phones together to get them transferred, which in this case it didnt even use the cable to do the transfer, and it was the weird thing of wireless connecting up.
The start of the transfer
The Transfer from the Note 7 to the Note 14 Pro + 5G
The Transfer Progressing
This was turning out to transfer wirelessly instead of using the cable. But it was also then the setting up of things such as WhatsApp, and even the QR Code scanning did not always go to plan. Plus, even with apps such as Swift Backup, it does not let it easily transfer installations of the said apps. One of the reasons I was filming this part at work on an evening was for a quicker download. This DOES support USB Type-C Ethernet adapters as well.
The Tests:
Location and GPS:
This one was a surprise for me since, actually, the location was very quick and felt immediate with locking,whichc,h for li, like I had accuracy within 10 seconds in some cases with DATA on. Especially with CM Link using 5G, which was a surprise but worth it with the extra data I was gifted from the app. So it means Google Maps was instant for accuracy, even with the option to allow while only using the app. GPS Locker was doing quite good fixes.
The GPS locks very quickly using GPS Locker.
The only noticeable thing is the compass side is a bit longer to lock with the right one, unless data or wifi is turned on. This means it might get a bit stuck trying to find which way points north if the signal goes down. But this is the first phone I've owned which has a quick locking mindset, so I know I won't get lost along the way of where my journey leads. Especially with Google Maps Timeline
The Display:
Now this is a very bright display which allows me to see it in most light and dark conditions, even when using the Reading filter. The standard mode on 60hz was still repsonosiveness on most of the time, even with alot of apps open. Plus it does keep the brightness as it should be. The Auto Brightness does not actually go as bright in the daylight as people would expect it to be.
The settings for the refresh rate
I mean, it's not made it discoloured snd the pictures felt rich and colourful even on the higher brightness Parts. This shines even through the phone and even at night; the lowest brightness is still visible to see, but slightly raising it makes it easier for reading, even in Bed.
Sound:
So this one is amazing; the speakers can really boom here, and the vibration even the phone makes from the bass is astounding, which does make the phone vibrate, so it's ideal for a quick rave or loud, intense video to watch. Even I've had jump scares from turning off silent mode when watching the recent Trap and Chavy British AI Cartoon Slop thats appeared on insta.
Even on Phone calls, they are actually loud enough to the point I have to lower the in-call volume to reduce it, since it is louder than my ears can support. With the Redmi Note 7, it was cutting out or hardly as loud. But with some earphones, it was feeling a bit cut out in the call with audio, so it's still worth getting better earphones when using low signal on 4G Calling.
Performance:
Memory and Storage:
This can handle a fair few bits of multitasking, even with the memory extension feature turned off, since using the 8GB RAM is fast enough for my needs. I will admit the only issue you've noticed is some camera lag when using Dual Video, which I can check with. Going from Hyper OS 1.0 to 3.0 has caused some slowdown, so I might do a reset to get that sorted.
The UFS Storage helps for copying files but will reduce the copying times; I noticed it felt a bit slower using the memory extension as well. But browser tests give pretty reasonable results too. Thats also the time which makes it easier to have files refresh every so often.
The Transfer Speeds using an SSD in the USB-C port (USB 2,0_
The Transfer speeds are a bit easier to see
The Transfer speed for using OpenMTP on MacOS
Web and Compute Tasks:
This actually performed very well; the speed of webpages performing with CM Link on EE was almost instant, a bit faster on Giffgaff on O2 compared to the Redmi Note 7. This meant some easy tasks for performing, plus the Speed Tests with Google were actually immense on some of the 5G Speeds in a backward time of EE.
The Fastest Speed i've ever seen on a non-Wi-Fi connection with my own eyes. This was in Tavi too.
This was on Giffgaff in a similar location.
Back near home, and giffgaff was a bit slower indeed.
But CM Link and EE do have more rapid speeds.
Again, even better with EE-based 5G on CM Link
Then it comes to the Browser-Based Test Performances and it seemed to do quite well, and it felt quite fast. But it has its limits with the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, but it's feeling like it can really push it.
The results of one of the benchmarks
A bit clearer of the results
Battery and charging:
This one is interesting since the varying charging speed is quite quick even on weak chargers like the 500mAh ones I use. But this is without the Fast setting off. When doomscrolling, it does drain more on the battery, and the 5G standby with the second SIM might cause it to be lower again. But it has not really gone that low since i've set it up and charged it. About 3 overnight charges since the day the phone was set up is a good start to it with how to keep somewhat extending the battery.
The sloping gradient even extends to the right.
The battery protection feature from MIUI is back.
Even when testing GPS and navigation, the % drop is nearly 3% an hour, which is quite good considering 5G and GPS and occasional screen checking to make sure the GPS is on the right mark. Doomscrolling does drain it a bit more than others. The standby time is quite a flat percentage as well. This is also one of those things where an evening will only take like 20% of charge in that time and not a massive amount more.
But standby feels much better than the Note 7, like not having to charge the phone as a requirement during the day feels the right stage. Like, the battery sloping is not as steep in some cases, even with WhatsApp and Snapchat unrestricted. Some days it actually feels like it can be an impressive time for the battery life, like once every 2 to 3 days is now a charging time on this aspect. Like for days out, I don't have to actually charge it to 100%. But when using it for watching content or keeping the screen on, the battery does seem to go down to a noticeable percentage.
The only issue I can gather is that some of the notifications are not coming through even on Battery Saver (Recommended option) with some apps such as KIK and even other apps. But most of them have worked as they should.
Sound and Call Audio
So this is one of the benefits of this deal: the audio quality is very loud and clear. Especially with the ringtones and the added bass thats used, which the loudness was making the phone vibrate from how much louder the sounds are provided from the speaker. This works really well for the alarms, and most of the caller rings were easy to notice it was going off for an alarm or text, or phone call.
When it comes to watching YouTube and other socials, it feels clear and crisp, depending on what the person has uploaded in their own quality. Most of what I have watched has been that clear, minus a few occasions.
When it comes to the calling audio, this is actualy very loud and clear, maybe with the help of wifi calling, although some calls to O2-basednetworkss decide to fail on me. But when in work, it's easy, and even I have to make sure that I lower the volume since it does hurt my ears putting it close. Over time, this will worsen because of the speakers in the earpiece getting dirty, which is wear and tear, but that will be at least 1 year away before this happens, I expect.
When it comes to Bluetooth audio, the headphones and speakers I have are more subpar for sure on this occasion. I know on my end that the Sound Science earphones I have for less than £5 are muffled for both incoming calls and audio being spoken out, so I had to change back ot it for the call to work as it should when on the go. Eventually I'll get some higher-quality earphones with a neckband so I cannot lose them ike i have with the Acer earbuds I owned from work in the past too.
But all in all, it makes it easier to continue operations with daily calls as stressful as it goes; I've used ACR phone to re-enable SIP, so that brings the automatic answering aspect back on the menu as well as the MIUI dialer.
Camera
Now this one is the big part of why this was purchased, more so as Xiaomi has improved the details on the camera; it goes to show how much has really changed since the Redmi Note 7 times. So this will be divided into some sections and some examples over time given. Since the Stock Camera and the BSG GCam Mod were used.
Stock Camera
So this was the interesting part of how many features were used and shown to be implemented on this, which even some i've still yet to explore. But the list of this comes under
Photo
Video
Dual Video
Slow Motion
Time Lapse
Long Exposure
Night Mode
PRo
Ultra HD
Panoraama
Portrait
Which, to be fair, the quality of each has some interesting quirks, which, compared to the Note 7 and other phones, was a shock for me in ways.
But the settings on each were quite clear to understand, and even some of them give examples of what the impact of it is used for.
The settings of the camera were simple to explain, and then going into the modes feature allowed it to add extras, such as the focus tracking with a green outline or using the parts that are blurry with a purple outline, relate to the brightness of that part.
The Parameters for the Video
Video settings for the stock camera app
Photo settings for the stock camera app
The Photo display parameters
The descriptions for the pro photo section
The descriptions for the pro video section
General Settings for the Stock Camera
The settings also allowed alot of customisation for the watermarking, which his handy, except the custom fonts are not used, which can be a shame, but it also means I can have the watermarks in the centre
or even different variants of the said watermark, which is actually quite a handy thing to note down for when wanting to change the style up.
The Watermark settings
When it comes to the layout for the app, it's familiar to its MIUI form as much; it makes it easier to sort out how to navigate the modes on the said camera. But actually, it was a smooth experience.
Some of the icons actually were becoming interesting for being able to:
record at different aspect ratios
Use a Teleprompter (Perfect for Cameo requests, I will not lie)
Be able to change things like Focus and Aperture in Pro mode
The feature for long exposure mode.
This leads to working out how the picture quality looks; actually, it is quite good. There are some issues on some pictures with how it tends to blur out the background. This might be the meeting setting in Photo, which allows it to blur around the focus area. Even months later its working these things out. Turning this off does seem to help it.
So now it's some of the Pictures taken with this to see how this does look with the contrasting colours in various situations.
The viewfinder and how the UI Looks
In 4:3 Ratio
Using the Pro Mode
Another focus element to it
The standard first meal with the Note 14 Pro 5G
One Pic without the AI Features
The first BeReal selfie on this
Showing distance in 16:9
A 2x zoom in
The far-reaching 16x digital zoom in.
The 0.6 zoom feature to get a wider angle in
Another feature with the AI Camera
The 200MP Mode
The Dual Video Selfie
The Be Real Selfie as a comparison
The Viaduct 1 x Zoom
The Viaduct 2 x Zoom
The Viaduct 4 x Zoom
This shows that, in some conditions, it can actually be quite good in terms of quality. The 200MP camera mode is good, but as it would be raw, it does take time to load it, but still has its beauty. The use of the Panoramic is actually quite simple but needs that bit of work. But after the filming for the review was done, events happened which allowed some options to take more shots and see how the distance and camera can work. Some on the comparison side for later on.
The colours in the Sky and grass to reflect the Bank Holiday Sun
Even when using more objects in the scene
With showing the colours of the Sky and the watermark hidden in the crowds
The detail of the Burger and chips in Spoons
The dual video screenshot
The Water Exposure
Long Exposure to create that blur effect
A clear view of the Water touching the feet
This is how it looks in portrait mode, which is more pale than it looks compared to GCAM.
The clear Sky and blue ocean for the colours
The 4x zoom into the ocean near the mouth of the river
A look downwards
This one had the AI camera, I think.
The sun does not cause the loss of quality here too.
This image brings the best showcase to seeing an object up close.
In this case, the stunned bird I had to recuse from the ground to the bird table and the detail with how it looks at 1 x zoom
For the darker environments, it does actually make it a bit poorer quality and longer to extract the light from the shot in some cases with the stock camera app.
The use of the Long Exposure mode again
Normal Mode and the sky does look nice, and the light is brighter than it seems.
In darker moments, it does make it harder to see in Standard mode.
Night mode on the stock camera app doesn't show much light captured at all.
Even with some artificial light in the said shot
This still preserves the Golden sunset aspect in the Long Exposure mode.
This captures the stillness of the water much better.
So it has some of the benefit to it and ease of use. But one of the features that is hidden is the Teleprompter, which I will use more often, since, yes, it means you can copy and paste from webpages, Cameo, Even google keep in to the Editing section on the prompter, and it will paste it in there for you to read and it to scroll down as you read.
The Screenshot for the Teleprompter on the Stock Camera app
The main thing with video is tat is is quite smooth for this but can have some lagging moments, which Dual video is one of them, which you can notice if the front camera lags when I am speaking.
But it is also using the Stablization on this mode with the rear camera as well. But it ends up now to see the difference with the GCAM Mod.
This one has some of the same familiar from the Note 7 but is more updated and compatible with the power of the CPUs from Qualcomm. But most of the features work as intended, from Panorama to even using the Photo Sphere and Night mode is much clearer and easier to use than it used to be.
This is the 360 View (Photo Sphere)
This is the Panoramic View
Night Sight looks much better than the stock camera app.
Holding still without the tripod is actually one of the tricky parts.
Using the tripod, the moon and nights from neighbours actually make it look amazing with the light it captures
The Selfie using Gcam, and you can see the darker or more red tones in the heat.
Landscapes from here are quite amazing actually.
The clouds are more prominent here.
Same with how the trees are showing to almost the height of the cloud
A Bit more of a stable night sight
Showing the tones again on the beach sort of selfie
It's still semi-darker in normal mode.
The redder tones on my skin are easier to notice and feel more flush than the stock camera looking pale in portrait mode.
The blur is much more prominent.
The landscape style is a bit more pale on GCAM when compared to the Stock camera app.
You can see more of the skin tones here.
And a more effect of the blur it produces
Which for me it realises there are some interesting differences for this and over time will be more so, see suvh as how the recording works when using the front brightness or the selfie torch on GCAM, or even how some of the Slow motion clips work since that tended to crash when using the Redmi Note 7 in its day too.
Display:
To be honest, this is one of the brightest displays i've seen and used, it can really keep its holding for when it needs to be used in the daylight, maybe thats from its 1000+ nits of brightness, but even when cycling along with sunglasses from the 4 heatwaves of Summer 2026 (currently on to 4th as of August 9th 2026) its been able to still see it clearly, I've had little worry with using it on the lowest brightness when in bed which is still able to see quite clearly.
The Conclusion:
All in all, this phone has alot of potential, and it's been actually good to see how things are working with it. There are annoyances for the day to day use which some of whichares Xiaomi'fault,lt but some of them are generalGooglegle and android gripes but daily use feels snappy, responsive, and the features or some of them I wanted are included in this model.
There have been a couple of annoying issues, like SIP support dropping due to Android 12 and newer dropping it, and Fonts on HyperOS 3 hardly working. The Dialer mod did work on Hyper OS 1 but not on 3. There have been some crashes, like when I started filming the vlog for the St Ives day out, which the whole thing was unresponsive, even after rebooting the phone beforehand.
But generally it has felt a right move to move from doubling the 7 to the 14; skipping to the 13 was not as good an idea from when I was running to review it, actually a year ago in August.
omracer's Rating: 7/10
The Good Points:
Fast and Responsive, with its Decent Snapdragon CPU
Reasonably decent value (at Black Friday 2025 prices)
Image Stabilisation on the Camera
Dual video in the stock camera app
5G Speeds can be amazing with EE
Charging can be rapid
Decent Call Audio Quality
In-screen fingerprint sensor is brilliant
Location is almost instant fix (Actually slower if Giffgaff O2 SIM is used for Data instead of EE Cmlink
The Bad Points:
HyperOS has its quirks
Had to gradually upgrade and could not jump straight from HyperOS 1 to HyperOS 3)
Fonts keep changing back to original even using Zfont
The Google Dialer being an EEA ROM (Technically not an issue due to having to use ACR Phone, which still allows SIP Calls to work)
Can't turn 5G off for second SIM (could force it to be 2G on MIUI 11 Android 10)
So thats it; this review is over, and when I get some more time after accounting overdue nightmares, I will be able to get time to finally make another review, or so, before the ending is up. Since there are projects in and now I'm getting used to new filming techniques and editing techniques, it means I can handle how this works.
But for now, enjoy the rest of summer, and this might have a new post eventually.
