Xiaomi 14 Ultra review

HyperOS on top of Android 14

The 14 Ultra is one of the first phones to launch with Xiaomi's newest software platform called HyperOS - in their words "A human-centric operating system designed for the "Human x Car x Home" smart ecosystem." We already encountered HyperOS on the Xiaomi 14, and you can read our dedicated article or watch the video below to get a taste.

Xiaomi's update policy for the 14 and 14 Ultra includes 4 years of major OS updates, plus an extra year on top of that for security patches. While not exactly matching Google and Samsung at 7 years, it's still a reasonably solid software future.

The new OS sure looks and behaves a lot like the MIUI of old, and while we don't doubt there are under-the-hood improvements, long-time Xiaomi phone users will be right at home. There are subtle differences to be spotted though, like the slightly flatter design and more rounded edges for a lot of the design elements.

HyperOS on the Xiaomi 14 Ultra

Some things have gotten more intuitive, like the multi-window implementation where the buttons are now more self-explanatory. That's not entirely the case with the quick settings, so it's nice that there's an option to enable text labels (off by default). You can no longer opt out of the Control center though - that's only still available on the phones that had it pre-HyperOS, but not on those that launch with the new software.

HyperOS on the Xiaomi 14 Ultra

Benchmarks

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra has the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 inside - the same chipset you'd find in the Galaxy S24 Ultra, Find X7 Ultra, Magic6 Pro, or most of the other high-end phones this year, whether they're camera-centric or otherwise (the vivo X100 Pro is the notable exception with its Dimensity 9300). The chip is by now a familiar performer and has proven to be a noticeable step up from last year's top-tier Qualcomm SoC - as it should be.

Manufactured on a 4nm process, the SD 8 Gen 3 features an octa-core CPU in a 1+3+2+2 configuration, with a prime Cortex-X4 core clocked at 3.3GHz. The GPU is the Adreno 750. The 14 Ultra for international markets comes in a single configuration with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage (that's our review unit and storage speeds are indeed consistent with the UFS 4.0 standard). The Chinese 14 Ultra also gets a 12GB/256GB version as well as a 16GB/1TB one.

In benchmarks, the 14 Ultra showed excellent numbers - in the top half of the class, without standing out as an overachiever. It was more in its element under CPU loads, while the GPU results placed it a few notches down the chart. The Performance mode in the battery settings didn't really affect benchmark scores in a meaningful way.

We've discontinued GFXBench graphics benchmarking as the app is often banned/blacklisted on the phones we receive for review. The graphics performance ranking in 3D Mark is just as meaningful, so we suggest you refer to that one instead.

Under sustained load, the Performance mode didn't affect the results in the 3DMark Wild Life stress test and the 68% stability isn't half bad for a high-end phone. That's with the asterisk that the initial scores were a few percent behind the best, but the stability is nevertheless welcome.

Sustained load, Balanced mode: CPU Throttling test • 3DMark Wild Life stress test

In the CPU Throttling test, the Performance mode had somewhat of an opposite effect to what you'd expect - peak performance was lower than in the default Balanced mode. In both modes, however, the Xiaomi showed excellent behavior with relatively minor thermal throttling.

Sustained load, Performance mode: CPU Throttling test • 3DMark Wild Life stress test