Redmi Note 14 Pro+ Unboxing & Impressions - FINALLY a Good Redmi Phone?

Hello everyone, I'm Pratima and today I have Redmi's latest Note 14 Pro Plus with me. If you remember, during lockdown, the Redmi Note 10 Pro came out and that thing was the best mid-range phone at that time. But in the last 3 or 4 years, Redmi's Note series does not have that same kind of appeal, mainly because of the competition. We have iQOO, Motorola, there is nothing, OnePlus's Nord lineup and then we have Realme. So many brands offering quite competitive mid-range phones. So, can this be Xiaomi's year? Let's find out. So, first of all, let's unbox this. By the way, I have this Chinese variant with me because this phone has not launched anywhere else. There you go. We have all kinds of basic stuff. We have the SIM ejector and then we have a clear case, some paperwork and then we have the phone. We have it in this white color variant but besides the white variant, this phone is also available in a green color option as well as a black color option. Setting that aside, we have a 90W charger inside the box. Take notes, Samsung. And if I remember correctly, the last time we used to get a 120W charger, so probably a downgrade. And then finally, we have the compatible Type A to Type C cable. By the way, this 90W charger can fully charge this phone in under 45 minutes. Okay, now although I made it feel like I unboxed it just now, but I have been using this device for two days. And what I really liked at my first impression is the design. It looks like you're carrying a flagship phone. It looks like the Vivo X200 Pro, actually. The gap between a flagship phone and a mid-range phone is getting so much closer every year and I cannot be more thankful for that. Here you get a glass back and the front is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus 2. Likewise, there's also an official IP68 rating and that's not it. There's another IP rating as well, the IP69K, which means that you can submerge this phone for up to 2 meters for 24 hours. So it's fair to say that Redmi has actually provided quite premium specs here. The only flagship versus mid-range difference that you get here are these plastic frames. But overall, this is a good design with a nice looking camera layout. The back also has these sort of nice looking patterns, which you cannot feel, but they look quite nice. And overall, I feel like the Redmi Note 14 Pro Plus actually looks better than last year's Redmi Note 13 Pro Plus. But you have to know that this phone is quite hefty. It weighs around 210 grams, which is partly because of its big 6200 mAh battery. In my use case, at first it felt quite heavy, but over time I just got used to it. And because it has a mammoth size battery, this thing is a battery champ. I got easy 2-day backup from this phone. As you can see from these screenshots, I am easily getting 48 hours of backup, which is even better than my iPhone 16 Pro Max. Even on the display side of things, I have good things to say. This is an AMOLED screen. It's a 12-bit screen with 120Hz refresh rate, HDR10+, Dolby Vision support, etc. And not just on YouTube, but on OTT platforms like Netflix as well. At the same time, Redmi has also bumped the brightness. Previously, it was a peak of 1800 nits, while this time it is 3000 nits. And even the typical outdoor brightness is sufficient, so no complaints on that regard. At the same time, the bezels here, as you can see, are really nicely trimmed down. And the speaker here sounds fuller as well. I think it sounds better than last year's Redmi Note 13 Pro Plus. So overall, I would say that the multimedia experience on this phone is quite nice. It also has an in-display fingerprint sensor. It's an optical one, but it's fast and responsive. And then the 120Hz refresh rate is also optimised quite well. So overall, this phone feels fast to use on normal usage at least. The Redmi Note 14 Pro Plus is powered by the Snapdragon 7S Gen 3 chipset, which is a decent, only decent, upgrade from the Dimensity 7200 Ultra that we got last year. The 7S Gen 3 is not necessarily better than the 7 Plus Gen 3 or 7 Gen 3 even. The S in Snapdragon's lineup is a downgrade. But overall, the 7S Gen 3 does not feel slow here. I have to tell you, I've been rocking the 12GB variant with 256GB of internal storage, which is the base model. But as I said earlier, this phone feels fast enough on normal usage. And I'm also happy to report that Redmi has improved the vibration motor here. So when you're typing or when you get a call, the vibration feedback feels really crisp and strong. Alright, when it comes to gaming, I have to tell you that this phone cannot do high FPS gaming. The max it can go is 60 FPS in games like PUBG and Mobile Legends, and around 30 FPS in Genshin Impact. But good news is that the temperatures on this phone does not rise. It remains in the cool zone. There is no heating. But considering that this phone will be launched at around Rs 30,000 in India, at that price, you should be getting better gaming performance considering the competition. Anyway, let's talk about the cameras now. And this year, Redmi has decided to get rid of the 200MP sensor in favour of a 50MP unit. But to compensate for that, we're also getting a brand new 2.5x telephoto lens along with the usual 8MP ultrawide angle camera. Now, I haven't thoroughly tested its cameras yet, but my initial impressions are as follows. First of all, the ultrawide angle lens is quite average. The photos from it lacks much detail and sometimes fails to manage good dynamic range too. But the other two sensors are quite good. I actually got some good images from its primary camera. Like with most Redmi phones, you will notice a lot of contrast in the images, but it does not necessarily turn out bad, mostly. The images are nice and sharp though. But one issue I found is that the main camera cannot go very close to subjects and also there is no dedicated macro mode here. The telephoto lens shoots some crisp shots though. You can zoom up to 30x at max and up to 5x you can get some okay images, but anything above that is not very good. Plus, there is no OIS in the telephoto lens, so you need to keep your hands really steady. But what this telephoto lens does best is shooting portraits. It can shoot some good portraits with nice subject focus. But I have to tell you, the portraits from it might not be everyone's cup of tea. Even with beautification off, the skin is extremely smoothened. You basically look like a doll from it. Even the selfies have the same kind of beautification. I guess it's because I have this Chinese unit. The Indian unit might not have such an issue. The pictures during night time are quite nice though. I like the way the Redmi Note 14 Pro Plus handles exposure and maintains sharpness without even turning the night mode on. Over on to the videography side of things, you get an option to shoot at up to 4k 30fps. And here is what the video quality looks like. From the front though, you can only shoot up to 1080p 60fps, which is a bummer for a phone at this price range. So there you have it guys. This was my unboxing and full impressions of the Redmi Note 14 Pro Plus. I hope Redmi manages to price it aggressively and not price it above 30k to be very precise. Because at that price, it's going to be smashed by the competition like the Moto Edge 4D Pro, the OnePlus Nord 4 and iQOO is also launching the iQOO Neo 10 soon. So if it is priced at around 27k to 28k, it's going to be a killer offering. Otherwise, we'll have to wait and see. So with this, we've come to the end of this video. I hope you liked it. And if you did, don't forget to subscribe to our channel. And while you're there, don't forget to hit that notification bell. Saying this, I'm Pratima Adhikari and thank you so much for watching.