Xiaomi isn’t shy about making concessions if it means delivering a great mid-range experience overall
Xiaomi 14T: Two-minute review
The Xiaomi 14T offers the design language and beautiful display of a current ultra-premium smartphone in a more affordable package, giving users a simply stunning screen and reliable performance for around half the price of a typical flagship. The compromises, notably in the camera department, are clear, but the 14T’s display, battery life, and performance show Xiaomi isn’t just skimping, but making considered choices to deliver excellence in key areas.
The gorgeous 6.67-inch AMOLED display is the star of the show here. Photo and video content looks amazing on this panel, which packs a punch in terms of both contrast and detail. The tall, high-resolution screen makes the lightweight 14T a reliable and portable gaming machine – I found it could sustain demanding games like Call Of Duty: Mobile and Race The Sun with no drops in performance and without overly depleting the battery.
In day-to-day use, performance is snappy across the OS, though the phone can stutter a touch when switching between apps. The impressively large 5000mAh battery keeps the 14T going all day with regular use, and easily into the next with lighter usage; I found it genuinely difficult to run the phone down to 0% over the course of a normal day.
A price tag like this necessarily implies compromises, and Xiaomi has made clear concessions in two areas. The telephoto and ultra-wide cameras, while nice to have, do not live up to the main camera’s standard. And the phone’s premium aesthetics don’t preclude concerns about durability – the front panel picked up a good amount of scratches in the course of normal use during my testing.
Overall, however, Xiaomi has produced a solid mid-range flagship with the 14T. This is a big, responsive, feature-rich phone, and a reminder that the gap between standard and premium smartphones is narrowing. Xiaomi 14T review: Price and availability
Not available in the US
Starts at £549
The Xiaomi 14T starts at £549. As with most Xiaomi phones, it’s very unlikely that the 14T will be released in the US. It comes with 256GB or 512GB of storage and 12GB of RAM.
As a mid-range flagship, the Xiaomi 14T sits next to rivals like the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE, which starts at £649, and the Google Pixel 8a, which starts at £499. The 14T’s starting price of £549 feels appropriate when you factor in the specs sheet and Xiaomi’s weaker brand recognition in Western markets.
Here’s a Xiaomi 14T price guide for the UK and EU. Xiaomi 14T review: SpecsXiaomi 14T review: Design
All-aluminum chassis
Four-ring camera housing
Comes in four colors: Titan Gray, Titan Black, Titan Blue, and Lemon Green
The Xiaomi 14T has a blocky aluminum-alloy construction, with squared edges that round ever so slightly into the back panel. It’s lightweight, with just enough heft to allay any feelings of cheapness, and the rounded corners and matte finish on the rear panel make the 14T comfortable to hold in either landscape or portrait for extended periods of use.
Xiaomi calls the specific material used a “metallic aluminum alloy”, which comes in three colors: Titan Gray, Titan Black, and Titan Blue. Xiaomi also offers a variant of the 14T in Lemon Green: the company says this variant uses vegan leather made from 50% bio-based materials, including lemon fiber, with 100% recycled PET in its construction. The unit I tested was the standard Titan Blue model, but I commend Xiaomi for offering a more environmentally conscious option.
The 6.67-inch display and 20:9 aspect ratio from last year’s 13T and 13T Pro are unchanged – this remains an undeniably large phone. The Xiaomi 14T generally feels great to hold, but I can see reachability being an issue for those with smaller hands – you can enable a slightly fiddly gesture to access one-handed mode.
A volume rocker and textured power button are built into the right side of the phone, with a USB-C port and dual-SIM tray along the bottom. A speaker on the bottom edge and the earpiece cutout along the top bezel of the display form a stereo pair for audio, which is serviceable for videos but a bit tinny for music.
As with its predecessor, the Xiaomi 14T features a large camera bump. In contrast to the 13T’s futuristic black camera module, the 14T’s camera housing seems to be made of the same aluminum-alloy as the rest of the phone, and this gives the 14T a refreshingly industrial aesthetic.
The camera bump houses three cameras and a flash that gets its own lens-like ringed frame – initially, this seemed like an effort to make the device seem more premium than it actually is, but with time I’ve come to appreciate the visual symmetry this choice provides.
Design score: 4 / 5Xiaomi 14T review: Display
6.67-inch AMOLED
144hz adaptive refresh rate
4,000 nits peak brightness
The 6.67-inch display on the Xiaomi 14T is its best feature and true selling point. It seems to be the same display as on the Xiaomi 13T Pro, but that’s no issue with a phone of this price: as we found in our 13T Pro review, this is a gorgeous AMOLED panel that is consistently bright, sharp, and contrasty in a range of environments. Videos, photos, games, and anything else you can put on this screen all look fantastic.
