For Xiaomi, the recalibration of the Redmi Note series began a couple of years ago. Three clear distinctions within, with the standard, Pro and Pro+ variations, allowing for the latter to get more premium price tags. Incidentally, the Redmi Note 12 Pro+ and then the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ found themselves in the sort of territory that’d usually feature comparative ‘flagship killers’ from OnePlus, Oppo as well as Vivo, and effectively stood their ground. The Redmi Note 14 Pro+, which is the 2025 challenger to the portfolio effect, carries much of that generational gravitas.
You must observe how the Pro+ phones, now in the third generation in this era, have delivered three very distinct designs and finishes. There’s clearly work that starts from scratch, and the only continuity between this generation and the previous, is the very likeable vegan leather finish—this time around, it’s exclusive to Phantom Purple. Camera island on the back is bigger and centre aligned, which seems to be a developing theme with 2025 smartphone portfolios across brands. The Redmi Note 14 Pro+ sits nicely in the hand, with little to complain in terms of the ergonomics — except perhaps the positioning of the IR blaster, which is now placed near the cameras and not typically on the top spine.
The more you interface with the Redmi Note 14 Pro+, the more you’ll agree with my observation about generational gravitas. Then again, would you expect anything less when paying between ₹30,000 and ₹35,999. The 6.67-inch curved display not only ticks off the expected 120Hz refresh rate aspect, but delivers with really good colours, illumination levels outdoors (this peaks at 3000 nits, against 1800 nits earlier) and support for the HDR format troika (HDR, HDR 10+ and Dolby Vision). The only nitpicking I can really do is that colour separation, often when watching videos or sometimes when editing photos, isn’t as profound as it possibly could be. Digging a little deeper, it may have something to do with the colour preset options in the display settings, which may require some tweaking.
The Redmi Note 14 Pro+ also marks the arrival of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip (not to be confused with the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3, found in the OnePlus Nord 4). You can have this with either 8GB or 12GB RAM, though our recommendation would always be the latter for the sake of future-proofing. Having had considerable experience with the predecessor, it is safe to say that the transition from the MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Ultra to the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 elicits a moderate step forward in terms of app reaction and overall performance. That isn’t minor, considering the high experiential baseline that the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ had set.
But it does make one wonder, why Xiaomi didn’t opt for the somewhat faster spinning Snapdragon 7+ Gen instead? While the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ handles multitasking and gaming with considerable comfort, there are still the occasional slowdowns when you’re really stressing it. Games too, need to be slightly toned down for visual effects. In my opinion, subsequent HyperOS updates will iron out a lot of these niggles. Contextualising our observations about generational performance improvements, it must be said that the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ has enough power under the hood to tick off the future proofing that some buyers give weightage to.
A serious upgrade arrives in the form of the battery capacity. The new silicon carbon battery composition allows for much higher density, which means the 6200mAh capacity is a 22% increase over the 5000mAh lithium ion battery in the previous phone. While the wired charging speeds have reduced to 90-watt from 120-watt, that is more than compensated by a battery that will last much longer before you’ll need to charge it again. In our experience, with medium usage loads, the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ lasts two full workdays on a single charge, still retaining close to 16% battery when plugged in again.
Cameras continue to be figure prominently in the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ pitch. There is a 50-megapixel wide primary sensor (this is a OmniVision Light Hunter 800), a 50-megapixel telephoto (the Samsung ISOCELL JN1 is being used) and an 8-megapixel ultra wide (Sony IMX355). This is a more balanced setup compared to the 200-megapixel wide primary sensor alongside an 8-megapixel ultra wide and a 2-megapixel macro that figured before. That is a good optical hardware foundation to build with, and results do impress for the most part.
The primary 12.5-megapixel images (that’s pixel binning, by default) do return the sort of classic detailing you’d expect from a phone of this price and stature. Colours look good, and nicely distinctive too when you’re capturing subjects that demand such finesse. The observation here could be that the whites tend to lean towards the cool-er side, but it doesn’t take away from the overall tone. The sky, for instance, is better balanced in sync with the rest of the frame, and not unnaturally illuminated (that would mean losing the texture of blue and natures’s tonality). The photos are very editable as well, if you like dabbling with Lightroom for instance.
Something should be done the fact that finer textures tend to lose detail quite a bit if you look closely—skin (portrait photos are an example), patterns on wood and even the just visible details on flowers. If you are to use zoom, you’d be better off at 2.5x optical zoom (this uses the telephoto camera) instead of 2x digital zoom, the details in the former coming through much better.
Also Read: Redmi Note 14 series launched in India at ₹17,999: Know all about new models
Low light photos leave its competition quite some way behind, with hardware as well as image processing improvements more than clear with how shadows, light sources and overall illumination of a frame is balanced. You’d probably not realise this at first—hold the phone still for longer when shooting in low light, to get a blue-free photo. The lack of 60fps for 4K videos, a big miss even as a basic requirement in these times.
Even as it ticks off pretty much most of the checklist for a phone around the ₹30,000 price point, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 14 Pro+ has some standout elements—the large battery with an advanced composition, a dedicated and capable telephoto camera, HyperOS that is now thickening the AI layer with Gemini plus much more, and an appreciable design. The competition landscape, which includes the OnePlus Nord 4, Nothing Phone 2, iQOO Z9s Pro and the Google Pixel 8a, is more closely fought than what the Redmi Note 14 Pro+’s predecessors had to possibly contend with. With that as a perspective, this seems to have enough in its arsenal of smarts.