Xiaomi Redmi Note 14 5G review

18 February 2025


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  • Anonymous
  • mAS
  • 19 Feb 2025

I was waiting for this review as I recently bought the phone, in Romania. I have a couple of issues with this review's conclusions (the rest is fair).

1. It's not €300. I'm paying ~€260 spread out over 2 years with 0 interest. Literally a bit less than €11/mo for 2 years.

2. It's unfair to slap it with a Con for not bundling a charger. Firstly, you can't have it in the box anymore because of new EU laws (charger must be available separately). Secondly, a 67 W Xiaomi charger is under €20 and can be had for as low as ~€15 if you're OK with a "naked" unit (original but comes in a bag as it's sold in bulk). So even with a retail charger the phone is still just ~€280.

3. It's unfair to slap it with another Con for not having HyperOS 2 out of the box. It'll come, what's the rush? What MAJOR feature am I missing? Nothing. It's not a big deal.

That's about it. For the price, I think this phone is unbeatable. My complains are:
- It's so big... I hate that but wasn't able to find anything similar in a more compact size.
- Xiaomi is too deep into its proprietary charging protocols. They habitually don't specify which widespread charging protocols the phone supports (e.g. USB-PD, QC) and even though they support some of them they limit charging speed to low wattage levels on any charger that's not from Xiaomi. So if you want to hit those 45 W you need a compatible Xiaomi charger (and you don't know exactly which to get) and you MUST use a Xiaomi cable. VERY annoying.
- Overall, SoC performance is decent but the GPU is abysmally bad. I'm not playing games on my phones but the GPU is so bad I'm afraid it may affect other GPU-accelerated tasks.
- I have a BIG issue with HyperOS that's a security vulnerability. I can't disable the "Carousel" functionality that can be triggered from the lock screen when you swipe right. With the screen locked the phone asks to Accept terms for Carousel and proceeds to enable it. The user can then access some rando photos taken by Xiaomi from the web, with some descriptive texts but this all runs in a browser, which exposes a gigantic security vulnerability surface. I'm deeply unhappy that it's at all possible.

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  • ?
  • Anonymous
  • qL}
  • 19 Feb 2025

Anonymous, 19 Feb 2025Suuure, regular users should root their phone to remove ads... morethe problem is you need to have bootloader unlocked to root which is very hard these days for xiaomi phones

    • C
    • Cv
    • 6iN
    • 19 Feb 2025

    Welcome to Gboard clipboard, any text that you copy will be saved here.Tap on a clip to paste it in the text box.

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      • 1989
      • CbI
      • 19 Feb 2025

      Anonymous, 19 Feb 2025Suuure, regular users should root their phone to remove ads... moreNo need to root to remove ads, they can be diasabled in phones own settings. But you do need something that allows your phone to connect to adb to remove bloat. And hes totally wrong about them being easy to root. Of all the ones that still allow you to unlock bootloader they are the hardest.

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      • ?
      • Anonymous
      • Ibx
      • 19 Feb 2025

      Yazzman, 18 Feb 2025Why can't we have a decent specced phone tha is not xp... moreThey don't still because most consumers don't care about those features. People willing to shell money already have wireless headphones as they are massively more convenient and sound good.
      Sd cards are another antiquated feature since all you need on your phone are a couple apps and then room for pictures/video(MSD cards can't record 4k60). Stop pirating youtube audio rips and just get Spotify.

      It's funny people that cry about these things non-stop never actually mention why they want these things, because they know the moment they do they will sound silly/poor.

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      • ?
      • Anonymous
      • Ms7
      • 19 Feb 2025

      Anonymous, 19 Feb 2025ads can be disabled in system settings Also since xiaomi p... moreSuuure, regular users should root their phone to remove ads and bloat from device they payed for since its such a simple process to download ROM from "some website" and flash it.
      Maybe you got used to it, but imagine you buy a TV that pushes ads on you, but its OK cause you can go and root it
      We accepted Xiaomi ads for years cause they were priced so aggressively, but thats not the case anymore, there are lot of competition with no caveats attached

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      • Just me
      • EUf
      • 19 Feb 2025

      "We believe a 2x zoom implementation would have been better because 3x zoom pushes the sensor's limits and the SoC's image processing capabilities."

      They have 3x toggle because they use In-Sensor zoom. When you have 108MP senor that bins 9 pixel together to output 12MP photos, if you want to do In-Sensor zoom you have to go to 3x and crop form non-binned sensor output.
      2x would be just grom prom binned 12MP and upsacled and would look even worse.

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      • ?
      • Anonymous
      • Sr6
      • 19 Feb 2025

      Ermcat, 18 Feb 2025Thanks for the review. I think the ads in system apps an... moreads can be disabled in system settings
      Also since xiaomi phones are among the easiest devices to root in the industry, you might as well delete some of those annoying system apps altogether. There you have it. Problem solved. Now stop complaining.

        This could be better phone... but because this D7025 doesn't support 4K and 1080p@60fps which is sad. This would be perfect if 6 Gen 4 was used.

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        • Minu
        • ter
        • 19 Feb 2025

        ashrobb, 18 Feb 2025That processor wouldn't be so bad if the GPU had prope... moreAlso, the design is appalling compared to previous iterations. They only make sense as Poco phones, but not Redmi Note phones.

          Thanks for the review.

          I think the ads in system apps and other annoying / anti-privacy features in them (as typically present in xiaomi phones, at least the lower end ones) should be highlighted more if there a chance.

          I fear that the GPU unable to even run the Vulkan-based benchmark is Xiaomi's fault. Or IMG's. Either way, the hardware supports Vulkan 1.3 but both times I've seen it - on Moto G54 @ Android 13 and this phone - there are no Vulkan drivers. They were added with the Android 14 update to the Moto, with some visual glitches when closing the Vulkan-powered app but it does work properly. IMG GPUs having issues or lackluster software implementation has been an issue for half a decade if not more.

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          That processor wouldn't be so bad if the GPU had proper Vulkan support. But as it is, it feels gimped. They should have just slapped the D1080/7050 or whatever it is named these days and be done with it.

          Otherwise the last and more powerful of the Redmi Note to still have legacy features like a 3.5mm jack and micro SD support. The 14 "Pro" has a weaker processor setup, weirdly. Redmi is a mess this year.

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          • Yazzman
          • mpc
          • 18 Feb 2025

          Why can't we have a decent specced phone tha is not xperia with headphone jack and sd card . This is disappointing.

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