Camera tour with the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ 5G in Hamburg

The Redmi Note 14 Pro+ 5G is the flagship of Xiaomi’s Note series this year. I took it around Hamburg to test two things that Xiaomi has put on its banner this year: the camera and the battery.

Camera: surprisingly good during the day

At a brunch together, it’s already clear what the camera can do:

• 200 megapixel main camera: does a really good job with photos.
• Macro camera with 2 megapixels: okay, but you can tell from the photos that it’s only 2 megapixels.
• Zoom: surprisingly good up to 10x, 30x at most. Then it gets difficult, but the AI tries to get everything out of it that it can.
• Selfie camera with 20 megapixels: I especially like the portrait mode, the photos get a great bokeh effect.
• Video: with the main camera in 4K at 30 fps.

On top of that there are AI features that I wouldn’t necessarily have expected on a fairly inexpensive smartphone. With AI Erase Pro, for example, I make a canoeist disappear from the picture. With AI Image Expand, I convert a picture into a different format and let the AI extend it. Night shots in Hamburg’s HafenCity are clear, too. The AI does some post-processing, but I find it very authentic.

In darker rooms like a restaurant, the camera still takes good shots. Here, apart from the macro camera, I noticed a difference from my Xiaomi 14 Ultra for the first time. That’s logical, though, for a smartphone that costs only half of over €1,000. The Note 14 Pro+ 5G is available from an RRP of €499.90, and I have more than once spent three times that on supposed flagships.

Battery and charging

The battery is 5,110 mAh. Together with the efficient Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, I get an extremely good runtime of about two days, even though I shot a lot. Unfortunately the screen-on time isn’t shown in the settings, but I estimate 8 to 10 hours on one charge. If you use the smartphone normally, you’ll probably get through more than two days with ease.

On top of that there’s 120 watt HyperCharge. Not even expensive flagships from the competition have that. With the matching charger, the smartphone is fully charged in about half an hour.

Weight, display, performance

• Weight: Despite the 6.67-inch display, the version with the faux leather back weighs only 205 g. The variant with regular plastic weighs 5 g more. I like the faux leather because of the extra grip, but it’s not for everyone. With the slightly rounded edges it sits well in the hand.
• Performance: The Note 14 Pro+ 5G runs smoothly. Only in direct comparison with my Xiaomi 14 Ultra with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 does it feel minimally slower, with apps needing a millisecond longer to open. You only notice that if you use both devices almost at the same time.
• Display: 6.67-inch Crystal Res AMOLED made of Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 with a maximum brightness of 3,000 nits. That’s among the brightest on the market. There was no sun in Hamburg, so I couldn’t show that.
• Speakers: sound really good, which I didn’t expect.

Verdict

I would put the Note 14 Pro+ 5G under the motto robust and durable: a light, powerful, sturdily built smartphone with an excellent camera and extremely good battery life that brings all the currently important AI features. There are small compromises in low light and in macro shots, unless the AI recognizes the scene and optimizes it. Otherwise it’s almost at flagship level. In Hamburg I asked myself more than once whether it’s still necessary today to spend almost three times as much on supposed flagships. For 95% of the population, the answer is a clear no. It was an ideal travel companion, not least because of its low weight.